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Series Code: TIJ
Program Code: TIJ002114A
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00:24 This is the most powerful place on earth. The U.S. Capitol 00:29 building is one of the most recognizable buildings in the 00:33 world and the center of American government. The world famous 00:38 domed building is home to the United States House of 00:40 Representatives and Senate. This place has the power to shape the 00:46 world more than anywhere else on earth. This is where 00:50 America's congressmen and congresswomen meet to conduct 00:54 business, debate laws, form policy and pass bills on behalf 00:59 of the American people. These leaders possess immense power 01:04 and influence. Their decisions affect virtually every person 01:09 on planet earth. Here on Capitol Hill is a wonderfully unique man 01:15 who provides spiritual guidance to these leaders and keeps his 01:19 finger on the pulse of the nation. He's a leader among 01:23 leaders. Brilliant and articulate, yet humble and 01:26 approachable, he is a force for integrity, goodness, reason and 01:33 compassion. So join me on a journey along the corridors of 01:36 power to the very heart of Capitol Hill to meet him and 01:41 hear a truly American story of how a person from the hood can 01:46 rise to the heights of the Hill and personal and professional 01:51 success. His story will inspire you and encourage you and more 01:55 than that it may even open your windows to personal success and 02:01 happiness, because his story is more than inspirational. It's a 02:05 template for true success. 02:08 ♪ ♪ 02:27 The United States of America is the most powerful and 02:31 influential nation the world has ever seen. It's the world's 02:35 foremost economic power with it's gross domestic product 02:39 accounting for close to a quarter of the world total. 02:42 America is also the world's dominant military power with a 02:47 budget almost as much as the rest of the world's defense 02:51 spending combined. America's influence is everywhere. It's 02:57 home to companies known all over the world: McDonald's, Nike, 03:02 Coca Cola, Amazon, Google, Apple and on and on the list 03:06 goes. Eight of the World's top 10 companies are American. 03:10 American culture, American movies, American music, American 03:15 soldiers, American food, American customs; they're all 03:19 encompassing. No wonder people say there's never been a super 03:25 power like the U.S.A. in terms of power and influence. And all 03:30 this has been achieved in less that 250 years. The United 03:36 States originated in a revolution that separated it 03:40 from the British crown in 1776. The American constitution was 03:46 drafted 11 years later in 1787 and established a federal system 03:51 of government with a division of powers that has remained 03:55 virtually unchanged in form since its inception. Now there 04:01 are three branches in the United States government. You see the 04:05 founders wanted them to be checks and balances for each 04:07 other. They didn't want any one group or individual to be able 04:12 to accumulate too much power. So the three branches are the 04:18 Executive branch headed by the President which enforces the law 04:22 Then the Judicial branch headed by the Supreme Court; it 04:28 interprets the law and finally the Legislative branch based in 04:32 the congress which writes the laws. Now the congress is based 04:37 here on Capitol Hill and has two parts: The House of 04:42 Representatives or the lower house and the Senate or the 04:45 upper house. Now the basic role of the House or Representatives 04:49 is to write, vote on and pass laws while the Senate's job 04:54 includes approving treaties, confirming judges and also 04:59 producing laws. The Senate is composed of two senators from 05:05 each state. So with 50 states making up the United States 05:09 there are 100 senators. Now the Senate is considered the more 05:14 prestigious of the two houses and wields immense power and 05:19 influence. It's decisions affect not only America but the rest 05:23 of the world as well. Yes, we're all affected by the decisions 05:28 that are made here. The founding fathers realized the huge 05:34 responsibility resting on these senators and so way back in 1789 05:40 the Senate elected its first chaplain to serve the spiritual 05:44 needs of the country's lawmakers and to set the tone and provide 05:48 spiritual guidance at the very highest level of American 05:53 government. Barry Black is the 62nd chaplain of the United 05:58 States Senate and the first African American to hold this 06:03 office. He's a remarkable man. He's a leader among leaders. He 06:09 previously served in the U.S. Navy for 27 years and was the 06:13 Navy's Chief of Chaplains and rose to the rank of Rear Admiral 06:17 with many medals and decorations before retiring from the Navy. 06:22 He's a brilliant and articulate man with a photographic memory. 06:27 He's got three master's degrees and three doctorates and yet 06:32 he's so humble and approachable. President Barack Obama said this 06:37 about Barry Black: 07:00 He opens each session of the United States Senate with a 07:03 prayer. He advises, counsels and prays with senators who seek his 07:09 advice. Barry Black is a force for integrity, goodness, reason 07:15 and compassion along the corridors of power on Capitol 07:20 Hill. Let's go and meet him. Chaplain Black thank you for 07:25 your invitation to the Capitol Building and to meet in your 07:29 office. It's a pleasure to have you on our program today. 07:32 I'm delighted to be with you, Gary. 07:35 Chaplain Black tell us a little about your early life. 07:39 I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, which is about 30 07:42 miles from Washington, D.C., I grew up in the inner city. 07:46 It was an urban challenge actually, an asphalt jungle and 07:54 I grew up in a neighborhood that had a great deal of poverty and 07:57 a great deal of pathology. There were drug pushers, people who 08:03 sold drugs, domestic violence was a spectator sport; you could 08:08 actually sit on your front steps and see someone, I would say a 08:16 spouse, beating another spouse but you know there weren't a lot 08:20 of marriage certificates in that neighborhood and sometimes it 08:23 was actually a woman chastising the man in a very physical way. 08:29 There were temptations, allurements and it was the 08:34 challenge of my mother to raise eventually eight children with a 08:42 nomadic husband who was not around very often and to ensure 08:48 that we received the harmonious development of our physical, 08:52 mental, spiritual and social powers. She wanted to ensure 08:56 that we had a Christian education. My family was on 09:01 public assistance, or as we called it back in the 50s and 09:04 60s, welfare. And so my mother had to find a way of enabling my 09:10 siblings and me to matriculate at a Christian school which we 09:15 all did from grade one all the way through college and graduate 09:19 school, although she was a domestic on welfare who made 09:24 only six dollars a day. 09:26 Chaplain Black did you ever feel inferior because of where 09:30 you came from? 09:32 I think that most African Americans felt inferior because 09:37 of the very nature of our society at the time. You have to 09:45 remember I was born in the 1940s I was born before President 09:50 Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces. I was born at a 09:58 time when we were called coloreds, later Negros, then 10:03 black then African American. I was born at a time when we had 10:07 a phenomenon known as colorism where the more fair your skin 10:13 the more favor you received. And we had a little maxim, If 10:19 you're yellow you're mellow, if you're brown stick around, 10:22 if you're white you're all right but if you're black get back. 10:27 So there was literally gradations even in the African 10:30 American community. Fortunately, however, there was a 10:35 transformative power 10:37 in the word of God and I started reading the Bible and one day 10:41 came across the scripture in I Peter chapter 1:18 and 19 10:47 For we are redeemed not with corruptible seed such as silver 10:52 and gold but with the precious blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ. 10:56 And although I was only 10 years of age I was able to do the 11:01 deductive reasoning that the value of an object was based 11:06 upon the price someone was willing to pay and when it 11:09 dawned on me that God had sent his Son to die for me, no one 11:15 was ever able to make me feel inferior again. 11:18 Who had the greatest influence or impact on your life? 11:22 Gary, the greatest impact on my life was made by my mother. My 11:27 mother was pregnant with me when she was baptized and as she 11:33 was immersed in the baptismal pool after an evangelistic 11:37 meeting of 12 weeks, she prayed for the Holy Spirit to place a 11:42 special anointing on her unborn child. So I never had any desire 11:49 to be anything but a minister. My mother reminded me that I was 11:54 like Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:5, set apart in her womb for a 12:00 special mission. I knew that, but when I saw that most of the 12:05 ministers were financially challenged, like Jonah I fled in 12:10 the opposite direction. 12:12 Chaplain Black, why did you decide to become a chaplain, 12:15 a pastor? 12:16 I, in the 11th grade, went away to boarding academy for African 12:22 Americans in Pine Forge, Pennsylvania called Pine Forge 12:25 Academy and the best preachers in my denomination would come 12:31 through for a week and preach and teach. And one evening 12:35 after a revival I walked outside of the chapel in the darkness, I 12:42 looked up at the heavens and I saw the stars for the first time 12:47 You don't see the stars in the inner city. You've got the 12:51 street lights and that kind of thing. You don't see the stars 12:53 like you see them in a rural environment with no street 12:58 lights or anything and it looked like a fireworks display and I 13:05 gasped and I said, Oh my God! And I stood there before what 13:11 seemed to me the majesty and infinitude of the universe right 13:16 there in that little field. And I suddenly knew that I didn't 13:21 know where I had come from, why I was here and where I was going 13:28 and I suddenly was aware of my infinite smallness. I was 13:33 suddenly cognizant of my frailty the brevity of my existence. It 13:39 seemed like I could hear something in my spirit say Barry 13:43 I think it's about time that we get to know one another. And 13:47 that was the first palpable, experiential and visceral 13:53 connection that I had with the Transcendent and that was my 14:00 Damascus road, that was my true call to ministry. Mom had 14:05 informed me of Him but like the Queen of Sheba said, We've heard 14:09 about you but now we see you and the half has not been told. That 14:15 God has been with me from that time until this one. 14:21 So how did you end up in the Navy? 14:24 I had a passion to work with young people and I was pastoring 14:29 octogenarians. I had a man in my church that was over 100 14:34 years old. I mean if you averaged out the age of my 14:38 congregation it was in the 80s, okay. And I was in my 20s. And 14:45 the leaders of my denomination who appointed me to 14:49 churches said; 14:50 You're too young to work with young people. You need to be 40, 14:54 which seemed to me senior citizen in those days. You need 14:56 to have experience, maturity. So I began to look at options where 15:03 I could work with young people. I looked at prison ministry. 15:06 Certainly plenty of young people there. I looked at an academic 15:12 ministry on a university campus as a chaplain. I looked at 15:15 Veterans Administration, hospital ministry and then a 15:20 gentleman by the name of Clark Smith called and said we are 15:26 looking for ordained Sabbath- keeping ministers to go into the 15:30 military to help our young sailors, soldiers, marines who 15:36 are having difficulty keeping Sabbath. It was my cup of tea. 15:44 No if, ands and buts about it. It was a protracted honeymoon. 15:47 I spent 27 years in the Navy and my worst day was a good day. 15:55 And I discovered that God delights in his people taking 16:03 judicious risks. Peter says in Matthew 14:28, Lord if it's you 16:09 bid me come and walk with you on water. In other words, Lord if 16:13 it's you bid me do the impossible and Jesus says Come. 16:20 So he has a sense of humor and he likes for us to take 16:27 judicious risks. So when you step out of the boat at his 16:31 bidding you'll walk on water. And it may be some little, 16:35 sinking but you'll walk on water. So, that's my story and 16:40 I'm sticking to it. 16:43 So how did you become the senate chaplain of the United States? 16:46 I became the 62nd chaplain of the United States Senate when 16:53 the incumbent, Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie decided to 16:58 step down. An eight 17:00 member selection committee then interviewed scores of chaplains 17:05 because each Senator, we have 100 Senators, was permitted to 17:11 nominate a minister, priest, rabbi, imam to be interviewed for 17:18 the job and I was nominated by a member of the armed services 17:22 committee and went through the first interview where they 17:28 winnowed down the number to 10. The 10 were then interviewed a 17:33 second time and then they winnowed that down to two and 17:38 then the two finalists were interviewed by the Senate 17:42 Majority Leader who then made a decision as to which of the two 17:48 would receive the appointment. So it was a very thorough 17:53 vetting and an amazing and wonderful honor to be selected. 17:58 And I'm going into my 16th year now so, time has flown. 18:03 What is your role and responsibilities as Chaplain of 18:08 the Senate of the United States? 18:12 Well each day when the Senate convenes it is opened with an 18:20 invocation and prayer from the chaplain. That has been going on 18:25 since 1789, uninterrupted prayer and it is probably the most 18:31 visible part of what I do, just the tip of the ice berg. Gary, 18:37 my role and my responsibilities as the Chaplain of the United 18:43 States Senate can probably be summed up in the simple 18:49 statement that I am a pastor to about 7000 people who make up 18:53 the senate side of Capitol Hill. So, I literally an pastoring a 18:59 mega church without an associate. I do four Bible 19:03 studies every week, one just for the senators, one for the 19:06 chiefs of staff, the brains of the senators and then two 19:10 plenary, anyone who wants to come, Capitol Police, janitors, 19:15 chefs, you name it. They're all there for the plenary Bible 19:18 studies. I do a spiritual mentoring class. Every week I 19:23 meet with our law makers for a prayer breakfast. I do 19:26 counseling, I have a Ph.D. in psychology, I officiate at 19:30 weddings, I officiate at funerals and memorial services. 19:33 I do work space visitation, I do hospital visitation. So it's a 19:38 wonderful opportunity to be a pastor for 7000 people. 19:42 Looking back over your life, do you think that God had a plan 19:47 for you? 19:49 Well I know God has a plan for every life, Gary. 19:51 In Jeremiah 29:11, he says, I know the plans that I have for 19:58 your life. (indistinct) I give you a window into my mind, into 20:03 my omniscience. My plan is to prosper you, and I'm going to be 20:10 a poor preacher. My plan is to give you a future. My plan is to 20:15 give you a hope. My plan is to bring you to an expected end. 20:17 When I was eight years of age, my mother brought home the only 20:21 record anyone ever gave her, the only record she ever brought 20:25 home, that she was given. And the record said, the morning sun 20:30 had been up for some hours over the city of David. He's not 20:33 from around here. Pilgrims and visitors were pouring in through 20:37 the gates mingling with _ from villages round about. 20:41 from the hills and the narrow streets were crowded. I played 20:46 it repeatedly until I'd memorized it. It was the record 20:50 of the sermons of Peter Marshall the 57th Chaplain of the United 20:56 States Senate. When I wrote my autobiography, From the Hood to 20:59 the Hill, the editors from Thomas Nelson who published it 21:04 said, We love what you've written. Our only question is, 21:12 Okay, well that's good, it's nonfiction. They said because it 21:17 this fiction or nonfiction. (chuckles) I said it's an 21:18 autobiography. Okay well that's good, it's nonfiction. They said 21:20 because it 21:21 would strain credulity that an African American child in the 21:25 toxic pathology of the inner city would listen repeatedly to 21:31 a sermon record by the 57th Chaplain of the United States 21:35 Senate, then grow up to become the only African American 21:39 Admiral in the history of the United States Navy Chaplain 21:44 Corporation and before 21:45 he can retire he is appointed the 62nd chaplain 21:49 of the United States Senate, a successor to Marshall, and by 21:56 the way, the only one of African heritage who's ever had the 21:59 job as well, or the only career military officer whose ever 22:02 had... It would strain credulity but since it actually happened 22:06 I guess we can run with it. So, God has a plan and as you can 22:15 see from the view in this office he has definitely led me to a 22:19 desired destination and to an expected end. 22:22 Chaplain Black what message from Capitol Hill would you like to 22:28 share with our audience? 22:29 One of the great Americans who has a monument on the Washington 22:36 D.C. mall put it this way. We shall overcome, making much 22:42 out of little, because the arch of the moral universe is long 22:46 but it bends toward justice. We can make much out of little 22:52 because Carlisle is right, No lie can live forever. We can 22:55 make much out of little because William Cullen Bryant is right, 23:00 Truth crushed to earth will rise again. We can make 23:03 much out of little because James Russell Lowell is right, Truth 23:08 forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne, yet that 23:13 scaffold sways the future and behind the dim unknown standeth 23:19 God within the shadows keeping watch above his own. 23:24 And as you make much out little, like that little boy's lunch 23:28 placed in the hands of the Savior. Galatians 6:9, Do not 23:33 become weary in well doing for in due season you will reap if 23:41 you faint not. 23:44 Chaplain Black you pray for some of the most powerful and 23:49 influential people on the planet Would you please offer a prayer 23:54 for our audience today. 23:55 Well I'd love to do that, Gary. What I would like to do is to 23:59 offer a prayer that I put at the end of my book, From the Hood 24:02 to the Hill, that has been attributed to Sir Francis Drake. 24:08 So let's pray: 25:30 We pray in your Sovereign name Amen. 25:39 Chaplain Barry Black's story is certainly encouraging and 25:46 inspiring. He shows we can over come the challenges of life even 25:52 in a high pressure environment. He shows how a person of modest 25:57 beginnings can rise to heights of personal and professional 25:59 success and he did it by remaining faithful to his values 26:05 and principles and above all faithful to God. Sometimes we 26:10 can feel overwhelmed with struggling with the challenges 26:14 of life. But if you're looking for ways to live a better life 26:16 and want to find inner peace and true happiness and if you'd like 26:20 to get closer to God, then I'd like to recommend a free gift we 26:24 have for all our viewers today. It's the book How to Pray. 26:30 This booklet is our gift to you and is absolutely free. There 26:35 are no costs or obligations whatsoever. So make the most of 26:39 this wonderful opportunity to receive the gift we have for you 26:43 today. Here's the information you need: 26:46 Phone or text us at 0436333555 or visit our website www.tij.tv 26:57 to request today's free offer and we'll send it to you totally 27:02 free of charge and with no obligation. So don't delay. Call 27:06 or text 0436333555 in Australia or 0204222042 in 27:15 New Zealand or visit our website to request today's offer. Write 27:20 to us at: 27:34 Don't delay. Call or text us now. 27:36 If you've enjoyed today's journey to Capitol Hill and 27:41 Washington, D.C. and our interview with Chaplain Barry 27:45 Black then be sure to join us again next week when we will 27:48 share another of life's journeys together. Until then, remember 27:53 the ultimate destination of life's journey. Now I saw a new 27:57 heaven and a new earth. And God will wipe away every tear from 28:01 their eyes. There shall be no more death nor sorrow nor crying 28:05 There shall be no more pain for the former things have 28:09 passed away. 28:11 ♪ ♪ |
Revised 2021-03-18