Participants:
Series Code: AFH
Program Code: AFH000021S
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00:01 A good father takes time to play.
00:05 He has strong integrity. 00:08 He is someone that is truly dedicated. 00:12 He is not afraid to show his love. 00:16 He is a caring provider. 00:20 And he's a kind spiritual leader. 00:22 These are just a few ways to describe a father's heart. 00:28 Hi, Welcome to A Father's Heart. 00:29 I'm your host Xavier. 00:30 And today, we're going to be discussing 00:32 how to save our young men from violence. 00:34 You know, in a society that we live in nowadays, 00:36 it seems like all our youth are out there 00:38 killing each other. 00:40 And, you know, we need to find out as fathers 00:42 what we can do to help this to stop. 00:45 And with me to discuss that are my friends, 00:48 Gordon and Paul. 00:49 How are you guys today? We're doing good. 00:51 Blessed, man. Good to be here. 00:53 So, culturally, ethnically, in every kind of aspect, 00:58 you look at it. 00:59 We have our young men just killing each other. 01:01 What can we do as fathers to prevent this, 01:04 you know, obviously it might not stop 01:05 because of sin, 01:07 but at least what can we do to help? 01:09 I think it starts 01:11 with observing our current culture. 01:13 My earlier years 70s, 80s, 90s when I was on the street, 01:18 it seemed more something related to the urban community 01:22 and especially communities of poverty. 01:25 And there was somewhat an ethnic divide, 01:27 in a sense, 01:28 you know, more Afro-Americans, 01:30 more Latinos. 01:33 People who are in communities of poverty, 01:34 now it's far more pervasive, it's become a culture. 01:38 Its music, 01:40 it's in many different forms of media 01:41 and it's actually hipped to be violent. 01:45 It's not just a group of people 01:46 that are reacting or being violent 01:48 because of a need of survival. 01:51 So we have to address the culture itself, 01:54 even as it pertains to our home environment, 01:57 with our, especially our sons, 02:00 what they're seeing and what they're learning 02:02 from that culture of violence 02:03 in terms of how it helps them to define themselves as men, 02:07 and how it reinforces 02:09 their sense of security in society. 02:11 There's a lot that I can share about 02:12 where I fail as a teenager. 02:14 And what I misunderstood, 02:16 that drew me more and more and more 02:19 into this lifestyle of violence. 02:21 I tell you, when I started pastoring in Chicago, 02:25 it was quite an eye opener for me, 02:28 talking about the music 02:29 and which I believe contributes a lot to it. 02:33 Realizing that the music that the young folks 02:36 were listening to it was so toxic. 02:38 Basically, we had a huge one Sabbath afternoon, 02:42 we did this program, 02:43 and we literally buried all of their stuff, 02:48 the CDs that they brought, 02:49 the music that they brought, 02:51 I mean what they were listening to 02:53 was, you know, there's violent music 02:57 and really pushes them I believe to this attitude, 03:01 this behavior of violence. 03:02 So, I do believe that the music plays a lot of, 03:06 very important role in it. 03:07 I also believe that at least for where in my demographics 03:11 in my community that I pastor, 03:13 it's a fact that they need food. 03:17 There's a lack in the home 03:19 where the parents is not parenting, 03:21 the father is not there. 03:23 They're being raised by single mothers 03:25 and the single mothers are working. 03:27 And so these young kids are home by themselves. 03:31 And then they get into the gangs 03:33 that are on the street, 03:36 and it's because there's a lack of parental guidance. 03:40 That's one of the big things that I find 03:43 that is propelling and is pushing 03:45 this violence for our young people. 03:47 Some of them that economically there's no food in the home. 03:51 There's no, you know, 03:53 so they go out and they steal and they rob 03:55 and there's a saying that says, 03:57 you know, we just got to bite, 03:58 simply means that they're going to eat 04:00 and they don't care what they have to do to eat. 04:02 I have, you know, been to a lot of funerals, 04:06 I funeralize a lot of them, 04:07 and I'm just really sick of what's happening. 04:10 But the issue is parents, 04:13 the parents have lost control in the homes. 04:18 You know, and that is a great point, 04:20 because I see that in our churches, 04:22 it seems like nowadays, 04:24 send our kids or people send their kids 04:27 to church or to school to learn about God. 04:30 And the parents just kind of leave it 04:32 up to the pastors to do it, 04:34 you know, and I have a problem with that. 04:36 Because the Bible doesn't say that, 04:38 the Bible doesn't say send your kids off to church 04:40 and church school 04:42 and go ahead and they do all the work. 04:44 You got to do the work too. So I agree with that. 04:46 You know, but what are some of the other things 04:49 such as mentorship, you know, for example, 04:51 I've mentored a lot of kids. 04:54 I remember a group of kids 04:55 that I was talking to at high school, 04:57 and just helping them with their homework 04:59 and one young man, African-American said to me, 05:02 "No, I don't want to do this college thing 05:05 because I can go to the, I can go to jail in California, 05:09 and get three square meals a day, 05:11 and play hoops and lift weights." 05:13 And all of us kind of looked at him. 05:15 I looked at him like, 05:17 well, you sound like you need a whipping, 05:19 you got no sense, none. 05:22 I'm gonna need you to go find that sense." 05:24 But I'm sad to say that but internally, I'm like, 05:27 I wonder what he's lacking at home. 05:31 You know, what can we do as men, 05:33 obviously in leadership roles, 05:35 but as well as our lay members, 05:37 as a church man, as a church, 05:39 because church is not a building. 05:41 It's a way of life. 05:43 What can we do to help our young men? 05:45 Sure. 05:48 It starts with ensuring 05:50 that you have a home environment 05:51 that's structured. 05:53 So I think for those of us here, 05:54 and most of our religious peer, 05:58 we may not be facing the same exact trials 06:00 because we are responsible 06:02 and accountable fathers in our home, 06:04 maintaining the type of structure 06:05 and the type of relationship 06:07 that will more than likely provide the correct nurture 06:10 for our sons or our daughters, 06:12 so that they make the right choices. 06:14 And most of us have now been removed 06:16 from that environment. 06:18 So for those of us that are still there, 06:19 and for those of us that don't have 06:21 that type of structure, 06:22 it helps for us to start 06:23 with understanding scientifically 06:26 what we're dealing with. 06:27 So I'm going to try to break this down for you a little bit 06:29 from even my own experience, 06:32 professionally as well as what I lived 06:34 as an at-risk teen. 06:36 So it starts with status. 06:39 It starts with status. 06:40 There are very groups in the street 06:44 that subscribe to violence and that type of lifestyle. 06:48 The minority are those who are doing it 06:51 because they actually see no other choice. 06:54 And I had friends like that, 06:56 say within a particular group 06:57 I was running with say 06:58 any number of five or six kids, right? 07:00 And we out there, we got a little gang 07:02 or we gang banging or whatever have you. 07:04 There may be one or two of us within the group 07:07 who don't know 07:09 where they're sleeping the next night, 07:10 they're from house to house. 07:12 They don't know 07:13 what type of meal they're getting. 07:15 They didn't know what type 07:16 when they would get their next set of clothing. 07:18 So for them, 07:19 it was an actual effort to survive. 07:24 And so, when we ran out or they ran out 07:26 and did bad things or robbed people 07:28 in this kind of stuff, 07:29 they weren't, as far as they were concerned, 07:32 doing it as a material necessity. 07:35 Then there are others 07:36 who they were from a proper home environment, 07:39 so to speak, or at least a dual parent home environment. 07:42 But we're all living in Brooklyn. 07:43 We all live in East Flatbush. 07:44 They have a mother and a father. 07:46 They're both working. 07:47 Their parents have income, both parents have cars, 07:49 etc, etc, etc. 07:51 They're packing pistols, they're selling weed, 07:54 they're doing everything everybody else is doing. 07:56 And they're also getting into situations 07:59 of violent conflict. 08:00 And then you had those like myself, 08:02 who the need, my physical needs 08:05 were being met as far as food, 08:08 clothing and shelter. 08:10 But then my challenge was like, 08:12 pass a phrase 08:14 Gordon said it a little earlier. 08:15 My mom when I got to the US, my mom had four jobs, four. 08:21 My mom was working three jobs during the week 08:24 and a job on the weekend. 08:26 And so, I would see my mom or hear her at times, 08:29 I would hear her get in the home 08:32 maybe like around 1 am 08:34 and then before I would wake, 08:36 when I got up at 7 o'clock 08:38 to get dressed to go to school, 08:39 my junior high school just across the street, 08:42 cereal and some milk could be on the table, 08:44 some toasted bread or something like that, 08:46 and my mom would not be there, she had already left for work. 08:48 So, we have this culture where you call, 08:51 you know, latchkey, latchkey children, 08:53 you know, and so on and so forth. 08:55 But my challenge was being able to survive 08:58 within the country 09:00 of those who had the immediate need of survival 09:04 because they prey on everyone else. 09:08 So then you get into this cultural struggle 09:11 where it becomes a need to elevate status. 09:15 And if there's one word I could pull out 09:17 of that drug culture, that violent culture, 09:19 that survival culture is the word status. 09:22 For us, it was like being in the military. 09:25 And you've been in law enforcement, 09:27 you know how it is, and there are different ranks. 09:30 You're able to meander your way through the community 09:32 and through the society, 09:34 in a safe manner, relative to your rank. 09:38 When you get there, you're a private, 09:39 you're nobody, 09:41 you're peon, you just, you're like a civilian. 09:43 And you can be victimized 09:45 by anybody else of a higher rank. 09:48 And so, as you run the streets, 09:50 you're basically working towards helping yourself 09:53 move up those ranks, 09:54 from a private to sergeant to lieutenant to a general, 09:58 to a brigadier, whatever, you know, 10:00 in the military language says, 10:01 well, here's what will happen often. 10:03 Some kids will start off 10:05 as civilians or private and then one day they just, 10:07 okay, you know, I'm sick of this. 10:09 I want to be a general. 10:10 So then we had status symbols. 10:13 We had symbols that identified 10:15 where we stood within that rankings. 10:17 So in my days, 10:18 some of the clothings were Puma shoes, 10:21 you know, Adidas shoes, shell toe Adidas, 10:24 black and silver Pumas, British Walkers, 10:27 wallabies and valleys and these type shoes, 10:30 those were sold, we got killed for them. 10:32 Lee jeans, Lee's jackets and leather coats, 10:35 leather bombers, sheepskin coats. 10:37 What's also called shearling coats. 10:39 Last but not least jewelry of whatever form and type. 10:42 Now if you're a general, 10:44 you're stepping out with all of that 10:45 your jewelry, your rings, your sheepskin coat, 10:47 your leather bomber, whatever. 10:49 And for sure, you have a gun, 10:51 you have a firearm 10:52 because you got to protect yourself. 10:54 So a lot of these kids were not involved 10:56 in drug trafficking or anything like that. 10:58 They just got caught up 10:59 in the whole status symbol thing, 11:00 then those of us 11:02 who got there through a hundred fights, 11:05 going to jail, getting arrested repeatedly, 11:08 getting your head busted open in a fight, 11:10 getting your teeth knocked out in a fight, 11:12 using whatever type drugs, 11:14 you know, you really ran the rocky road, 11:18 and you paid a price for it. 11:20 Here you see someone that you knew were a private 11:22 or you could just sense it. 11:24 And here they are presenting themselves 11:25 to the general 11:27 and then we would go and hold them at gunpoint 11:29 and robbed them and in some unfortunate cases, 11:32 injure that person fatally, 11:34 because we were offended 11:35 that they have made the wrong progress 11:38 within the status. 11:39 It's still going on today. 11:40 A lot of the Chicago gang wars, Brooklyn gang wars, 11:45 they have the added component of drug trafficking 11:48 and that being the new status, 11:50 but it has a lot to do with that, 11:51 then you hear on the news. 11:53 Oh, this kid got killed and he got killed for $5 11:56 and these people, 11:57 how could they rob and murdered this kid for $5, 11:59 have nothing to do with the $5, 12:01 or he got killed for his sneakers, 12:02 or he got killed for his coat. 12:04 It had less to do with that 12:05 than what it had to do 12:07 with this sense of attaining status, 12:09 so you can survive in the community. 12:10 And another component to that 12:12 is even now it's a little different 12:15 in some ways, 12:17 because along with the status, 12:19 you used to have the different gangs, 12:22 different block gangs. 12:23 Now what is happening 12:25 is that if you're on the same block, 12:28 you have one gang member, 12:30 and they have an opposing gang member, 12:33 but once you're on that block, they become one. 12:36 And so it is very much more complex now 12:39 for the law enforcement 12:41 because you know that on is block there is, 12:43 you've got one gang member, you have another one, 12:46 you have another one from different gangs, 12:48 but once anyone come in, in that block, 12:52 they come together and protect the block. 12:54 Yeah. 12:55 So there's no longer, 12:56 you know what, the end within this... 12:59 And what you're sharing here, 13:00 what Gordon is sharing here 13:02 is there's a difference between, 13:03 we actually didn't have gangs. 13:05 I got to the US and into Brooklyn in '77 13:08 and the gangs were just dying out. 13:09 I saw the last of the Brooklyn gangs by 1978, 13:12 Cats, Pumas, Jolly Stompers, Warriors, all these groups, 13:16 I saw them walking around 13:18 with their jackets and all of that. 13:19 And then by '78, it was done. 13:22 The gang culture died off and what evolved 13:24 and after that is something we for us Caribbean, 13:26 three guys, the posse, 13:28 and a posse is quite different from a gang. 13:31 A gang is, this was a close specific group of people 13:34 with an allegiance in that sense, a posse, 13:36 you're not necessarily connected like that 13:38 you're coming together for a common good, 13:41 the same way it was in the West. 13:43 So there would be some need, some violence 13:45 and then the posse would come together 13:46 and go hunt somebody down or whatever have you, 13:48 protect the village, 13:49 whatever have you. 13:51 Same thing in the streets today. 13:52 And a posse is very loose. 13:53 So as I'm saying, they come together 13:55 for a specific purpose, 13:56 but they're not really a gang in the sense of this tight 13:59 of that union and all of that. 14:01 And all of that being said, let's go back to the home. 14:04 And those of us who have sons especially 14:07 and we are in the urban environment, 14:10 please, please spend time devotionally with your child, 14:15 and help to build and instill in your child a sense of value. 14:20 Teach your children the difference 14:21 between the value of esteem and the value of self-worth. 14:27 See, if they are pursuing life 14:30 based on the objective of self-esteem, 14:32 then they're far more vulnerable 14:34 to that culture. 14:36 That's how it sucked me in. 14:37 Because then I basically used that same status symbol culture 14:43 to identify myself in value. 14:46 Because if I can wear a sheepskin coat, 14:48 wear a certain amount of jewelry 14:49 and when I stepped on a city bus 14:51 even though I was only like about 5'6" 14:53 or something like that, 14:54 people just got out my way 14:56 because the status symbol said something, 14:58 one, it said that I was armed. 15:00 Two, it said that if I could go across town 15:03 from East Flatbush, to Bushwick, 15:08 to Bed-Stuyvesant and back to Kings Plaza, 15:10 wherever and I haven't been robbed, 15:12 I must be some bad dude. 15:14 No, nobody would trouble me 15:15 until I would get into an environment, 15:17 as I said, 15:19 where there were a bunch of other generals 15:20 that didn't know me, 15:21 then they had to test my ranking. 15:23 And I had to do one of two things, 15:24 defend myself or be victimized. 15:27 But we have to take time to instill in our children 15:32 that sense of self-worth, 15:34 and that starts with who we are 15:36 in the eyes of God, 15:38 not who we are in the eyes of the streets. 15:40 Now, he and I are a perfect example. 15:43 So you heard the details of my home environment. 15:48 We grew up in the same neighborhood. 15:50 At one point, we went to the same church. 15:53 I left the church at about age 13 15:56 and I felt deeply into street violence 15:58 and gang violence and this kind of stuff. 16:00 I will still visit Brooklyn Faith on occasion, 16:04 you know, and people, you know, pray for our youth. 16:08 Pray for our youth. 16:10 I cannot stress that with any greater passion 16:14 than I am here today 16:15 is what helped me to be here today. 16:19 I was a charter member of Brooklyn Faith Church. 16:21 There's still a plaque somewhere in that church, 16:24 with the original eight members 16:26 started in a basement of 50 East 16:27 with the Second Street in Brooklyn. 16:29 My name and my sister's name are on that plaque. 16:32 So people in the church are getting in the church now 16:36 just come from South America 16:37 at about age 10, 11, 76, 77 16:41 people remembered me as a little kid. 16:43 And I went from that. 16:45 Once I reached about age 13, one more I told my mom, 16:48 "Look, I'm done." 16:49 Because and the reason why 16:51 was the pressures of the street were getting to me. 16:54 Only thing I could see through the portals of my eye 16:56 was I'm going to die. 16:58 I've got to learn how to survive on my own. 17:00 I have no father. 17:01 I got no big brother, no cousin or nothing, 17:03 and I'm short and I'm skinny. 17:05 And I see people getting victimized 17:07 in front of me daily. 17:08 I would stand up guy. 17:10 Here comes two guys, they put a gun on me, 17:12 put a gun on my friend 17:14 before I got into the status symbol stuff 17:15 but my friend was, they take your sneakers off, 17:18 we got to walk home in the snow barefooted. 17:20 You know, he's bleeding blood all over his chest 17:23 and his face from being pistol whipped 17:25 when the guys were robbing him of the sneakers. 17:27 I keep seeing stuff like that. 17:29 And I decide, look, kill or be killed. 17:31 I'm not going to be a victim. 17:32 So then I became a tough guy myself. 17:34 And I started walking that road, 17:36 I stopped going to church, 17:37 people from the church would see me at times 17:40 or visit the house, plead with me, 17:42 please come back. 17:43 Just please come back to church. 17:45 My mom tried. 17:46 I had conversations with my mom on weird occasions. 17:48 She's there praying, crying, got her candles, 17:50 her little shrine in the corner, 17:51 praying for me every day. 17:53 And one morning I went over to mother, 17:54 she was praying and I knelt down 17:56 to pray with her. 17:57 And she said I said to her, 17:59 "Ma, you just don't understand." 18:00 You know, my mom at that time 18:02 even knew that I was armed daily. 18:05 And she turned to me and she said, 18:06 "You're going out there with weapons. 18:08 I know you're carrying weapons." 18:09 I said, "Mom, if I don't, 18:11 I may not come home one afternoon, you know." 18:13 And I pray with my mother and I went to school 18:15 as regular that day, 18:17 yes, with a gun in my coat, 18:20 you know, so even to the point where I would run into members 18:23 of the church and one occasion, 18:26 and the husband grabbed his wife, 18:29 this was late when he was coming home 18:30 from somewhere, 18:32 grabbed his wife, I recognized them, 18:34 and I started to approach them to greet them. 18:37 When I got close to them, I realized 18:39 these people were so terror struck. 18:42 The man before I could greet them, 18:44 he said, we don't want any, we don't have any money, 18:47 here, here, here 18:48 and started going in his pocket to take out his wallet. 18:51 And I said, you know, making open here, 18:53 "Brother Brown it's me, Paul, 18:56 Sister Lowe's son from Brooklyn Faith." 18:59 You know what he said, "Paul, from where?" 19:02 I say, "Yeah, well, 19:03 I don't go anymore but I used to, 19:04 well, I remember y'all. 19:06 Oh Lord Jesus, thank you Jesus, 19:07 because they thought I was coming to rob them. 19:09 So you know, we have to do that work of prayer, 19:14 that church never stopped praying for me 19:17 through my arrest and my court trials 19:21 and being hospitalized for this or for that whatever, 19:24 people will always come visit me in the hospital, 19:27 people would always pray it with my mother before I, 19:29 if I had a legal infraction and all this kind of stuff, 19:32 it makes a difference. 19:33 But as I said, 19:35 it's that foundation of building a healthy 19:37 not esteem, but self-worth in your child. 19:40 If you victimize your child yourself in the home, 19:43 if you're the type of father that's a bully, 19:45 and you strip your son of all his self-worth 19:49 because you're constantly domineering him, 19:52 it's not going to help, 19:53 you can lose him to the street that way, 19:55 because he will go find value somewhere else. 19:58 Or likewise if that is absent period 20:00 because there is no father in the home, 20:02 we face the same challenge. 20:04 So those of us who are able, 20:06 you said the magic word mentorship, 20:08 let's ensure that we mentor the youth 20:10 of our church and our community, 20:13 those of us who are fathers 20:15 who can make that difference. 20:16 And even at Brooklyn Faith, same church. 20:19 As a young person, I was the Pathfinder director, 20:22 leading a group of young, young people. 20:25 And that's probably what I was, 20:27 that's what I was doing is trying to mentor them 20:29 the best way that I could, 20:31 and I will see Paul come in and, you know, slip out. 20:35 But I was amazed to see the transformation 20:38 that happened later on in life 20:39 when we got connected back together, 20:41 but mentorship, praying for your kids, 20:44 covering your kids with prayer, 20:46 before they leave home, 20:47 when they come home and teach them 20:49 to actually have a life of prayer 20:52 as they're on the street. 20:53 Because it's amazing what's happening on the streets 20:55 with our young people. 20:57 I talked to some of them on a regular basis 21:00 because I still as a pastor, mentor some of them, 21:03 the things that they're doing, 21:05 it's just, I can't even begin to talk 21:07 about some of the things that they're doing. 21:09 It blows my mind, 21:10 but they keep me abreast 21:12 with what's happening out there. 21:14 And because of that, I kind of help, 21:17 I can be of a help to some others by telling them, 21:21 listen, this is not the road you want to go down. 21:24 So mentorship is important, prayer for kids is important. 21:27 Building that self worth as Pastor Lowe said, 21:30 it's absolutely important 21:33 in just to building our kids up. 21:35 I think, you know, he brought, 21:37 both of you brought some key points. 21:38 You know, I heard the number, teenage years 12-13 years old, 21:43 you know, and that seems to be a critical point 21:45 in a kid's life to make a push for Christ. 21:47 And Christ is not just 21:48 so you can be walking around on a cloud 21:50 and be holy, 21:51 is to save you from yourself. 21:53 You know, God, God works to save 21:55 His children from themselves 21:58 and the other critical factor is, 22:00 it doesn't matter what type of home you have, 22:02 in the sense of, 22:03 you can come from a single parent home 22:05 or you can come from perfect, 22:07 you know, sort of speak two parent home, 22:09 Christians maybe 22:10 because that's where I came from, 22:12 a two parent home Christians, devotion, 22:14 ate all the vegetables, was super vegetarian. 22:17 But I wasn't never in a gang. 22:19 I was just a one man show 22:21 because I turned into a Satanist. 22:24 I didn't need a gang, I was my gang. 22:25 Mercy. Mercy. 22:28 All I had to say was the word, and I became, as they say, 22:31 you know, the Bible says Legion, 22:33 you know, and it feels good to have that power, right? 22:37 Mercy. Mercy. 22:39 And that's what we had to teach our youth 22:40 that even though it feels good, 22:42 you have no idea what you're messing with. 22:45 You're going to die 22:47 and it's not going to be a temporal death, 22:50 it's going to be an eternal death. 22:52 It's not worth it. Yeah. 22:54 It's not. 22:55 You know, and the other aspect 22:57 that I kind of saw similarity 22:59 is the fact that I think 23:01 all of us have shared 23:02 that we've all been arrested at some point in time. 23:05 You know, we've all been to jail. 23:06 It's not like we, somebody gave us a Bible here, 23:09 you're a pastor now, you're a chaplain. 23:11 No, we are, we're all of the disciples, 23:13 messed up individuals. 23:16 You know, Peter, cut somebody's ear off. 23:19 Simon, you know, John and James, were, 23:23 you know, soar like sailors 23:25 probably because they were fishermen. 23:27 You have Matthew the tax collector, 23:29 you know, every single person, 23:30 every single follower of Christ 23:32 is not meant to be this perfect example. 23:35 And I think, as fathers with our kids, 23:38 and with those that we see a need of that discipleship, 23:42 we need to show them our brokenness. 23:44 We need to show them that we are fathers, 23:47 but where and we are in leadership, 23:49 but we're not this holier than thou persona. 23:52 We've been there, we've done it. 23:53 We know what it's like and we know 23:55 and God only saved us 23:57 from ourselves through His grace, 23:59 so we can mentor others. 24:00 Amen. 24:02 And that's the one thing that I do it to my son 24:04 is he knows his father's journey. 24:07 And he knows the struggles of life. 24:11 But one thing that I want to point out then 24:14 some economic thing also that plays into this, 24:18 a lot of fathers don't have jobs. 24:20 And so they can't provide as much as they would want to 24:23 for the young people. 24:25 And so when they're young, 24:26 when their sons grow up and they started having, 24:30 you know, little ones, 24:31 they themselves find themselves in economic fix. 24:35 As a church, what we have done 24:36 is that we've created some that's called 24:39 I work Chicago and thereby, 24:41 every year we have applicants, 24:43 over 900 plus looking for work 24:46 and we're, we have big job, a huge job fairs 24:50 and resource center 24:51 whereby we point them and help them find work. 24:56 If you're not, if you don't have a job 24:59 and you're on the streets, 25:00 you're going to, you're going to stay up, 25:02 and you're going to get yourself in trouble. 25:04 So we have to provide something for them. 25:08 And, you know, we can't depend on the guy, 25:10 I think the church is an integral part in 25:13 and we've got to come alongside this families, 25:15 we've got, for me, I'm the pastor of my community. 25:18 I'm the pastor of the entire city of Chicago. 25:22 You should be able to come to my church 25:24 and you'd be able to find resources 25:27 whereby you can be pointed to a job or something. 25:29 That's an important, important piece. 25:32 I know we only have about a minute left. 25:33 But I wanted to share quickly also, 25:36 to keep in mind once again, 25:38 what these new status symbols are, 25:40 because they are the distractions. 25:42 The old status symbols had to do with being respected, 25:45 dressing well, being esteemed in the street, 25:48 have a little bit of money in your pocket, 25:49 the new status symbol is wealth, 25:51 and I mean, extreme wealth, 25:54 extreme wealth and that's being fused 25:56 and nurture by the media, 25:58 by the culture especially but many others also. 26:02 So it's now about 26:03 not just having money in your pockets, 26:05 but having great amount of money, right? 26:07 It's about reaching the level of a PhD 26:11 or some multi skilled individual, 26:12 some CEO, you know, 26:14 hundreds of thousands of dollars 26:16 and which way can you do that or accomplish that 26:19 if you live in an urban ghetto? 26:21 Drugs, murder for hire, prostitution 26:25 or whatever other illicit practice, 26:28 right, you know, and God forbid, 26:30 in the past I did in there all of those. 26:33 But you get your hands on those things 26:35 and you're building up your status 26:37 and your income to be, you know, a high roller. 26:41 So once again this is where the self-worth 26:45 and not esteem is important for the nurture of our youth 26:48 and our church population. 26:50 And this phrase is said also, 26:51 being part of a solution 26:52 by providing education is paramount, 26:54 getting our kids through college, 26:56 helping them to be degreed 26:58 but also helping them to engage occupations 27:01 that can provide them a successful form of living, 27:05 and teaching them the purpose that they're living for. 27:08 You're not living here to satisfy, 27:09 make yourself rich. 27:10 You're living here to be a part of the kingdom of God. 27:13 And I appreciate the guys, 27:15 and we got to pick this up again, 27:16 because it's a deep topic. 27:18 And for you out there, fathers, it's time to step up. 27:22 We keep saying that over and over again, 27:23 because it is. 27:25 We in and of ourselves don't have the perfect answers. 27:28 We really don't. 27:29 But it's time to step up and be there for your children. 27:33 And if you don't have any kids, 27:34 be there for the kids of the community. 27:37 You know, stop taking out your phones 27:38 to videotape fights, 27:41 you know, especially our young people 27:43 stop taking out video, 27:44 you know, your cell phones out and taping fights. 27:46 It's not cool. 27:48 It doesn't help. 27:49 It just contributes to the violence. 27:51 And fathers, again, 27:52 God caused you to step up and step out. 27:55 It's time to do the right thing. 27:57 Thank you for watching. |
Revised 2020-10-06