WITNESSING A BLUEPRINT IN MEMPHIS

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Scribbled on notepads in his study are the contemplations of a young man with a heavenly calling. With a skylight shining through an overhead window, a modern-day pioneer surrounded by sneaker boxes sketches his vision for a city in the Antebellum South.  In the coming weeks and months, those scribbles will blossom into palatable messages that will inspire and challenge the lives in his adopted community. Often only remembered as the location for the final living moments of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Memphis is in dire need of a rebirth. Once a major slave trading post, in 1862 during the Civil War, the Union Army recaptured the city of Memphis in an effort to emancipate those in bondage. Similarly, Pastors Jeremy and Tasha Louison are poised to capture the city of Memphis on behalf of the church they have been called to plant, Pioneer Church.

As someone who has raged against the machine of celebrity Christianity for the greater part of ten years, I have had a peek behind the curtain of a few mega churches. In Memphis, however, I had the pleasure of witnessing the grunt work that goes on behind the scenes of bringing to life a young church’s mission of creating an “environment where passionate, diverse, and spirit-filled people experience oneness with God and oneness with each other.”

After collectively working 100-hour weeks in their full-time careers and raising an energetic one-year-old, the Louisons can be found on Saturday evenings discussing edits to their announcements or dripping in sweat from moving tables and chairs in the sweltering southern heat. Absent are the smoke machines, Broadway-style lighting, Grammy-nominated choirs, and over-inflated salaries of pastors who are exempt from paying taxes. In an era where celebrity pastors strategically plant churches using the same business model as Starbucks, the Louisons have instead decided to adopt the model of The Apostle Paul: bringing the Gospel to the forgotten Gentiles of downtown Memphis. While other churches have decided to plant churches in affluent communities, Pioneer planted their flag where their message is most needed, in downtown Memphis. In an area that is riddled with abandoned commercial real estate and illegal prostitution is rampant when night falls, Pioneer Church is embodying what the Christian church is called to do in a modern world that is so in need of a life-giving message.

In the face of various naysayers who have stood on the sidelines shouting that the young couple’s vision was destined to fail, they have pressed on with a steely focus on the lives they have been called to impact. The congregants they lead steal away on Sundays to meet just as the congregants in the early church did: a small group of young men, women, and children finding oneness in their faith. A group that can be found exposing their wounds to one another while finding community through encouraging one another with love.

In 1967, a year before his death, Dr. King delivered a speech to a Philadelphia middle school where he posed the question, “What is your life’s blueprint?” A speech that is not as heralded as some of his more notable speeches, King encourages students to determine their own self-worth, to always achieve excellence in whatever work they put their hands to no matter the scale, and that there should always be a commitment to beauty, love, and justice. And in the place where Dr. King exhaled his final breaths, Pioneer Church is exhaling new ones by embodying that blueprint.

I swell with pride to call Pastor Jeremy and Tasha Louison my family. And after spending time in their home, I am even more eager to see their divine Blueprint come to life. I left their home reflecting on Chance The Rapper’s song, Blessings, as a benediction for that area of downtown Memphis: “Are you ready for your blessing? Are you ready for your miracle?”

KANYE EXPOSED US

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He had me at Jesus Walks.

Having grown up in an evangelical church, I began exploring my own musical palate outside of gospel music in the late 90s. Like most adolescents growing up in Brooklyn at that time, my ears immediately gravitated to the sweet sounds of hip-hop. So listening to this collision of flavors in gospel and hip-hop music almost instantaneously turned me into a massive Kanye Omari West fan. Two years later I was able to briefly work with Kanye and meet his mother, Donda, on one special evening early in my career.

Over the last fifteen years, I have defended Kanye’s contributions to American culture and interpreted his infamous rants with much aplomb. Most of the time I felt that Kanye and I were kindred spirits and I had the ability to articulate the beauty in his messages. In doing so, I felt connected to one of history’s musical geniuses. Often, I would end my defense of Kanye with a prophetic word saying, “history will view Kanye’s contribution to music more favorably than his contemporaries.”

Having closely followed his career, I know that Kanye mostly engages on social media when he is looking to push a product. So it came as no shock to me that Kanye returned to Twitter with content that would spice things up. However, before spicing things up he was tweeting overwhelmingly positive messages before folks began to pay attention. But in this climate, positivity doesn’t sell.

As is my modus operandi, I put on the full armor of Kanye defenses and prepared for battle. In full regalia I defended Kanye, that is until the salute to Candace Owens knocked off my helmet. But I pressed on, explaining that he merely said that he liked how she thinks. That is until the signed Make America Great Again hat penetrated my shield. Only left with a sword to defend myself, I battled on evangelizing to any left-leaning person that would listen about the framework of our American Democracy. That is until the sword was knocked out of my hand when Kanye basically insinuated that American slavery was a choice that our ancestors made for themselves. Defenseless and fallen to my knees in defeat, I began asking folks, “Why they thought American slavery wasn’t a choice?” The various answers that I received not only invigorated me but exposed the bedsores riddled all over America’s already brittle skin.

The response to the question, “Why wasn’t American slavery a choice?” begins with the fact that slavery was rooted in the Founding Documents of America and backed by the full power of the American legal system and military. Specifically, the iconic Supreme Court Dred Scott v. Sandford case where Chief Justice Taney basically informed Mr. Scott to leave his courtroom as he was property and therefore property had no right to adjudicate the case. American slavery was an American government-sponsored genocide and exploitations of my ancestors. Continue to research and follow that line of thinking and let me know how you feel.

There were more white people in the South than the slaves? NO

The slaves were not educated and therefore weren’t smart? NO

The slaves didn’t have the will because their master repeatedly broke their will? NO

The slaves didn’t… NO

Even when the slaves decided against slavery for themselves, like Dred Scott, it was the Rule of Law that returned them to their slave masters at best or to their deaths at worst. Remember that Amistad and 12 Years A Slave were both award-winning films where the Law is the main protagonist. Our ancestors were intellectual, intentional, and strong-willed people who would not have chosen slavery for themselves had it not been for the Law of the land that they were captured too. Any explanation that is not first rooted in a discussion around American Law is shrouded in racism and victim blaming.

As responses to my question poured in what I realized is that Kanye is uninformed and a majority of the public are also uninformed. So in effect, it was the uninformed shouting down the uninformed. This lack of understanding is a glaring indictment against the education system of one of the wealthiest empires in the history of the world. In the end, it’s imperative that we continue in a relentless pursuit of knowledge.

Thanks for exposing us Ye.

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