Charlie Dates
@CharlieDates
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Husband to @KirstieDates | Father of TheDatesRoyals | Senior Pastor @Salem_Chicago @ProgressChicago | Affiliate Professor @TEDS @TruettSeminary | Grace got me.
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The more I read scripture, the less any system of theology appears perfect. My hope is not in a theology, but in a Divine person who alone died for my sins and was raised.
There won’t be a theology test to get into heaven. There will be a relationship test.
#JesusIsOurOnlyHope
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I’m often asked, ‘Is it wrong?’ The better question for the maturing Christian is, ‘Is it wise?’
If we choose the wise, the wrong will have no influence over us.
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To be exclusively politically conservative or liberal (at all times) is to at once be Biblically unfaithful.
Let’s not take the bait. Neither party fully reps the Kingdom of God. They both need the voice of The Church.
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I hope you took some time to read, listen to, and learn from The Rev. Dr. Martin L. King, Jr today.
We are the better because God sent him our way.
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Every leader who declared Trump to be the only choice for Christians, who touted policy over personality should now give account for the compromised theology which led to those conclusions.
It’s an historical theology and an accompanying refusal to disown their arrogance.
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Here is one piece that I wished would have been said during episode 1 of
#TheBlackChurchPBS
special.
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Friends, there is no way to Biblically justify the separation of parents from children ‘as an application to enforce the law.’
Shame on anyone who would misuse the Bible for their political advantage. Some things have not changed.
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I read again this week the accusation that Black people who believe the Bible have ascribed to whiteness.
Those who say such must not know that Black people have long affirmed the authority of scripture.
Dismissing the authority of scripture is more European than anything.
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The Bible doesn’t say that love is God. It says God is love.
Seems to suggest that our definitions of love are to be defined by God, not the other way around.
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You don’t have to agree with someone to love them.
We don’t have to affirm another’s choices in order to affirm their dignity.
I don’t have to share your convictions, and yet I can respect you.
*Love always costs the giver more than the recipient.
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I think one of the many benefits of young people attending a multi-generational church is watching elderly Christians face the challenges of old age with confidence. Theirs is a certainty in the face of change that both humbles and inspires.
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Never think that you are losing power when you humble yourself.
That’s not how life works.
You do the most powerful work when you exercise humility.
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‘People have no trouble choosing heaven over hell, but they have a hard time choosing heaven over earth.’
-
@DeanInserra
Wow! Preach, man!
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PSA for anyone wondering: It’s within reason to be a sinner, have a proclivity toward a certain sin and still agree with God that the sin you enjoy is wrong. That’s logically possible.
Reject the idea that because your sin is pleasurable to you that God is wrong about it.
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To all who studied at a white evangelical school, in case no one told you: Cyril of Alexandria, Augustine of Hippo, Origin, and Athanasius were African men.
Our best exegetical practices and formulation of Christian doctrine started not in Europe, but Africa.
#BlackHistoryMonth
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I once thought Psalm 63, “my soul thirsts for You,” was an occasional feeling every believer had.
Truth is every person thirsts for God every day. Our thirsts pretend satisfaction with lesser deities.
It can take years to realize only one cup quenches the soul.
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The Black preacher in America must now be, as we have always been, a trusted historian and theologian.
We have a burden to exegete America at the same time that we exegete the Bible.
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To be a Christian in America is to transcend the binary of pro-choice and pro-life. It is to stand up for defenseless girls, victims of injustice, and against unrighteousness. That’s pro-Grace.
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We buried my Mother last week. I started singing a spiritual I learned as kid: “Sometimes I feel like a Motherless child a long way from home.”
Then an elderly member of our church called. She said, “Are you listening to me? God will make you happy again.”
May that be so for me.
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I’m seeing people abandon truth because her representatives disfigure her beauty. That happens, but the one who reveals and manifests truth is Himself the truth worth holding forever and ever.
Stick with Jesus and His people even if you’re frustrated with The Church.
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Now is the time in which need our best preaching, our most robust theology, a more righteous indignation, and an honest account of the evil at work in the world to flow from our pulpits.
Pray for we who preach The Gospel to be courageous.
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My heart grieves over the violence in the protests in Portland and Wisconsin (and all else).
Non-violence as a method of protest manifests the love ethic, forces the opponent to recognize the humanity of the protestor, and is the most powerful call for change.
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Don’t forget prayers prayed long ago. You’d be surprised how many things happening today were prayed for long ago.
God is deliberate, not delinquent.
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I did my best to share the truth of Psalm 91 today.
It does not suggest that believers are free from danger, but it does affirm that serenity is the privileged consequence of confidence in God alone.
We may lose things and some people, but we will see the salvation of The Lord.
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I’m not sure that there can be reconciliation without reparations.
Anybody serious about racial reconciliation has to likewise be serious about correcting the 250+year economic disadvantage inflicted upon Black Americans.
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While on the cross, the Roman soldiers guarded Jesus. Or so they thought. Who could guard God?
He was actually guarding them.
While taunted to come down, Jesus kept Heaven’s wrath from coming down on them.
Likewise, Jesus has guarded us in our rebellion. Oh, may we trust Him!
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For those outside of Chicago, be clear that the same south and west side neighborhoods where much of the gun violence happens are also impoverished, under-resourced districts.
There is a direct correlation between limited economics, education, hopelessness and violence.
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“Take Jesus with you! I don’t care how many degrees you get. He keeps His promises.”
- My Momma
I asked Mom tonight if she imagined, when we were born, all the good God has brought our family. Her reply was precious. “Yes, I asked God to bless my babies.”
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The older I get the more Black History means to me.
I’m not a nationalist or tribal; just aware of God’s faithfulness and palpable activity in the history of my people. He has brought us a mighty long way.
#BlackHistory365
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If it’s not big enough to pray about, it’s not big enough to worry about.
If it’s worth worrying about, it’s worth praying about.
If it’s prayed about, ain’t no need in worrying about it.
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Our panic around this virus and other matters of real alarm stems from the fact that we have no control, no known measure to fully protect ourselves.
I want to remind you that it’s okay to feel not in-control when the one who loves you most is in total control.
#Psalm91
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Who among us is so stoney of heart that the sexual assault stories of
#WhyIDidntReport
don’t move you?
We must raise our sons to serve their sisters, not prey upon them.
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“Dear Lord, help me not to bend the truth of The Gospel or my explanation of it to indict only the sins I hate in others while leaving my transgressions unaddressed.
Help me not to make of Christ a man made in my image rather than me being transformed into His.”
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To all of my White clergy brothers and sisters, hear my heart on this one. We need your help. These are your Senators who sit in your districts and listen to your preaching. Help us.
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Be encouraged.
Life is unpredictable.
Pain is unavoidable, but joy is still available.
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And we wonder how American slavery was *justified* from the pulpit. This is what Frederick Douglass understood to be plantation theology.
This is for the empire, not the Kingdom of God. This is a not legit Biblical theology.
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If God has done something benevolent for you, don’t keep it to yourself. Tell someone about it. Speak of His compassion, His power to protect, and His ability to provide.
Tell somebody.
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I generally find it useless to argue with people on social media. I offer this as a rebuttal against every incendiary excuse to not honor Billy Graham. We SHOULD celebrate him. He was a man with clay feet, but those feet were the first to preach the gospel on 6 continents.
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Mad respect for
@KingJames
tonight. And that he has sent 1,015 kids to college on full scholarships makes his impressive career even more stunning.
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What to the slave is the 4th of July?
What to Black Americans is the 4th of July?
Frederick Douglass asked this question in 1852. We must still ask it today.
#JUNETEENTH2020
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I’m learning again that I’m not the pilot or even the co-pilot in life. I’m really just a passenger and God handles the journey’s details.
Anxiety results every time I go into the cockpit to take over.
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Pray w/ me for every visitor that will sit in a church tomorrow - that they would hear that hope has a name, the name is Jesus Christ.
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Mr. Trump isn’t standing up for religious liberty. He’s exciting his base; people like you and those who wholeheartedly retweet you.
We worship every week. Our church never closed. Our building did. Big difference.
I am thankful that President
@realDonaldTrump
is standing up for religious liberty.
It’s obvious that democrat governors are targeting churches while deeming liquor and weed stores essential.
Let those that want to worship, worship! We are wise
@CharlieDates
!
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Some Hebrews preferred Pharaoh to Moses and Egypt to Canaan.
Harriet Tubman found it harder to get slavery out of the slave than to get the slave out of slavery.
The Boondocks had Uncle Ruckus. Now we have you.
Scripture is sufficient and was misused to enslave your ancestors.
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Here is my complete message from the
#MLK50
Conference in Memphis. I’d recommend watching the entire piece rather than snippets.
Grace be with you.
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Given the disproportionate rate of COVID-related deaths in black and brown communities, I think it generally unwise and untimely for me to urge our largely African-American congregation to gather in person.
Our souls can prosper even when our economy does not.
#NoThanksMrTrump
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Somewhere in that first Christmas was a lot of terror. Political turmoil, pending infanticide, a shake up in the established religious order.
Sound familiar?
We don’t need things to be ideal to enjoy Christmas. Seems like God timed His entrance to meet our chaos with His joy.
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If God has gifted you, you don’t have to promote yourself.
In the gifting is God’s timing. He will get you where He wants you when He wants you there.
Til then, relax.
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I’m so glad that the effectiveness of prayer lays not in the person who prays, but in the perfection of the Christ to whom we pray.
#KeepOnPraying
#GodCanDoMoreThanWhatYouAsk
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The NBA players are helping to calibrate America tonight. Praise God!
Monday night I heard Governor Haley say that, “Our Country is not racist.” The failure of the RNC to appropriately address this is not surprising. The silence of White theologically conservative ppl is.
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You don’t have to be mean or a jerk to be principled.
It’s possible to love people and hate the evil they say/do.
You can hold a righteous standard and still show kindness to the people who disagree with you.
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I want to affirm some young pastor.
Amid a lot of press about narcissistic pastors who’ve caused trauma, you need to know that countless young pastors started in their early 20’s, kept the faith, some were put out of their churches, planted others, and still blaze in their 60’s.
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We are all death eligible.
No matter how young or old, poor or wealthy, we are all so pain-capable.
The tragic and untimely death of Kobe Bryant stings as it reminds us of the importance of living in the right now in view of the not yet.
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Everyone quoting The Rev. Dr. MLKJ, “The time is always right to do what is right,” won’t admit he was urging a federal government to bypass its strategy of procrastination.
Pop culture will misappropriate MLKJ as an iconic sage rather than hearing him as a roaring prophet.
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Would you pause to pray for 17 yr old Erin Carey? He and his family are members of our church
@ProgressChicago
. Erin was shot early this morning in Chicago. Good kid. Most respectful. His family is in utter shock. Please pray.
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I’m cool with that
@baseball99
It’s been my experience that as long as black Christians agree with white evangelicals then and only then can we maintain your respect and admiration.
Sadly, it’s an honor badge to lose it. Let’s not kid ourselves, Jesus isn’t a Republican or Dem.
@CharlieDates
Sorry Mr Dates. You have lost my respect and admiration. But not my prayers. I pray you will be a voice to see the lost saved and the a voice for the unborn. A voice for Christ OUR SaviorYou sir could (if you wanted to) could be a powerful voice in the wilderness if you would.
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God is good. At some point you’ll have to believe that or you’ll be miserable for the rest of your life.
The sovereignty of God is only matched by the corresponding goodness of God.
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Maturity is when you can look at more and say, “No thanks. I’ve got enough.”
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It has pleased God the Father to hold back from me and you a knowledge of everything. So, we pray for faith to live with unanswered questions and a living hope that overcomes fear.
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I love the music of the Black Christian experience. Here’s to hopes that many young black Americans are watching
#ArethaFranklinFuneral
You can feel in our music the sorrow and melancholy being overcome with triumph by faith in Christ Jesus.
We owe much to our foreparents.
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The preacher who longs for popularity risks faithfulness.
It’s hard these days to tell the truth and be popular.
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The Gospel is the only message that cures what it diagnoses.
Unfaithful are those who preach it and remain silent about injustice.
If whiteness was falsely constructed by a fake Gospel, then it must be destroyed by the real Gospel.
#AhmaudArbery
#AndManyManyMore
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The Rev. Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. had the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child, the fire of a prophet, the love of a Christian, and the courage to surrender all of that to God’s call.
May that be said of you and me.
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Prayer is not a way to get more things from God. Prayer is how we get more of God Himself.
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The failure of White Evangelicalism is not the plight of Black Christians with a high view of scripture and a high Christology. It’s a gross libel to conflate the two.
We have long known that a proper reading of scripture is to preach both social justice and personal piety.
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Finished my message today at
#MLK50Conference
feeling more convinced that we shall overcome.
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Be anxious for nothing.
Pray about everything.
Give thanks for what you have and preemptively for what God is going to do for you.
Watch His peace stand like a soldier at the gate of your heart and mind.
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This is the problem when American history is told from the perspective of the pilgrims, not the natives or stolen Africans.
This is the irony of American religious freedom. It never prized the natives or liberated the enslaved. It almost always cares singularly for the European.
CNN's Rick Santorum: "We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes we have Native Americans but candidly there isn't much Native American culture in American culture"
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Some of the very people quoting and commemorating The Rev. Dr. Martin L. King Jr today also just affirmed a statement indicating that there is no value in CRT.
While I do not affirm CRT in totality, their benign witness of MLKJ’s ministry is proof that they see value in it, too.
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It is right to run to God, not from God, when we sin. It is even better to know that God seeks us out when we go astray. Hallelujah! That’s joy for my soul.
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I’m in utter shock. Total disbelief. Like, can this not be real, Dear Lord?!
Praying for Kobe’s family. I hope someone of great faith is near them.
#GodIsCloseToTheBrokenhearted
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If you’re like me, sometimes past mistakes haunt you. They linger too long.
Reading Psalm 78 this morning. The past is to be expounded for lessons learned; to help us live wiser in the right now and the not yet.
Let not ‘the was’ keep you from the joy of ‘the will be.’
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Sometimes I get the feeling, in our era of American Christianity, that love of political party *trumps love of neighbor.
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That jury in Wisconsin today basically said it’s ok to be found carrying a smoking rifle as evidence of your evil and still found not guilty.
Somewhere I read… Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, that He will also reap.
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To all my friends praying to the universe. That’s not a good idea.
The universe is impersonal, almost mechanistic and scientific.
Why trade the personal, intimate, knowable Creator-God for the world he created?
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Love is a difficult thing.
What makes someone feel loved by you is not that they are perfect before you, but that they with their imperfections are still graciously embraced by you.
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If you preach the gospel... simple, full, and free then I’m cheering for you not competing with you. We need all the gospel-voices we can get.
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What is happening to Black Sacred Music? The music for us to sing in church? I mean the music that captured the sound of our history, theology, and the tone of our struggle.
I’m wondering why has CCM replaced the sound of Gospel music and who is getting paid for the switch?
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You can try and try again to make stuff happen, but until it’s God’s time it just won’t happen.
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Every generation needs a voice crying out in the wilderness. Sometimes the wilderness is crying out for a voice. Here is one.
@JackieHillPerry
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When Black people show up to vote, things change. For this our fore parents bled, marched and died.
I hope generations of Black Americans (especially in Chicago) are paying close attention.
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Hey, guys. Just because a word is not in the Bible does not mean that the concept is not there.
Be careful not to dismiss truth on a technicality. 😉
#SaidForTheRecord
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I cannot say how grateful I am for
@markgalli
and the courage he and
@CTmagazine
have displayed.
They drew a historic line against the immoral political hijackiing of Christianity (largely) by racialized Evangelicalism.
It’s a shot heard by our neighbors round the world.
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Preached with a full heart and a light spirit under the power of The Holy Spirit... and when I sat down our media team said the stream died and my message was not recorded.
Feeling a little deflated.
About to preach it again for recording and posting. Pray for me, please.
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Jesus experienced the zenith of human suffering during passion week.
His request? Remember Me.
Take a moment to do just that when you see this tweet.
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Our politics is not our Faith. Somewhere, somebody missed the memo.
What an indicting and ironic picture at the scene of today’s Trumpian insurrection!
Jesus saves, but He does so by means of the cross not a president. Civil religion will never be true Christianity.
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To be Christian is not to declare loyalty to the Republican or Democratic Party. It is to stand in distinction; to care for the least of these. Sadly, Christians have become known for political affiliation more than prophetic witness. Let’s change that!
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At the risk of not minding my own business or speaking to a tribe to which I do not belong, let me affirm a sister I know and love - and all who are like her:
I rock with
@BethMooreLPM
Beth, you are an incredible gift to The Church. May your tribe increase!
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I’m telling my children, ‘It’s not enough to like truth. You’ve got to love the truth.’
Without a love for truth, the lies of the world will eat us alive.
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One of my goals for 2020: be a better preacher.
My Lord has given me the charge to feed His sheep.
He determines the diet. I’m called to set the table.
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#AnjanetteYoung
is a member of
@ProgressChicago
I am her pastor.
We have long known of this incident and the trauma it caused.
We stand with her in asking
@ChicagosMayor
for full transparency and accountability.
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None of us have good reason to be arrogant.
All of us have much to be humble about.
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Sitting next to an elderly couple on a plane and they are kissing as we take off. It’s heart warming.
Just so happens that this flight is for my and Kirstie’s 15 year anniversary. I feel like The Lord is winking at me.
May this be me and Kirstie 45 years from now, Lord! Please.
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This rhetorical finesse and the response of the people in the chamber is a peak at the influence of Black Preaching on culture. Make no mistake about it,
@RepJeffries
channeled the Black pulpit in Congress.
He took them to the water and they wanted to be baptized.
'Democracy over demagogues': Here is the alphabetical portion of
@RepJeffries
speech tonight.
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