We still figuring things out?!

So I have not posted in some time and we have not done a show in some time and its all on me. I am learning new ideas and getting things together so we can have a well-produced show that can last. I miss it like crazy but I want it to be fun for Regina and I want the people watching us too be blessed and not just entertained. Also, we have been busy getting ready for Regina to launch her new career. 10:30 Braiding and Natural Hair Design is becoming a reality more and more every day. We turned our garage into a work area for the both of us. She can practice and do hair while I can study, edit film and photo or whatever.  We are also working on a website for the business www.1030braiding.com and ordered our first round of business cards.  Continue to pray for us as we continue to figure it out?!

T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E

I'm listening to the audiobook The Hate U Give,  and it is a great book. I have experienced a wide range of emotions from joy to flat-out anger. I haven't cried and laughed like this due to a book in a while. It's very thought-provoking and has me exploring some suppressed feeling when thinking about my relationship with law enforcement. It has also stimulated my desire to help my family let go of their legit fear of America's law enforcement. This is going to be a hard blog to write today; I may not stay on task, and yes it is influenced by this book but please journey with me...

I mentioned that I had suppressed feelings toward law enforcement. If we are honest, we all have them regardless of your race. As blacks, we are becoming more vocal out of the necessity to survive. "Our country" has used laws to suffocate us with oppression for so long that we have to fight just to breathe. As a whole our feelings are no longer suppressed, they have expanded to a loud, overwhelming cry of frustration that will wake the dead. Now that we all have cameras to document the hate we are given by "our country" a revolution of change should be sure to come. The days of being peacekeepers and are gone. We have graduated to a more biblical stance, and are choosing to be peacemakers. As peacekeepers, we just wanted our freedom back; we wanted to be 5/5 human in the eyes of "our country." But with freedom came knowledge and now we know we, like all of God's children, are made in His very image. And with the wisdom of our true identity, we also are realizing that blessed are the peacemakers for they are children of God. It's our natural stance as children of God to make peace in our country even if our county doesn't want to make peace with us. To make peace we will have to have conflict; we will have to shine the bright light of our future onto the darkness of our past and present. I believe that light does not war with darkness; complete darkness must flee in the presence of light. We will see a day that the love will conquer all hate in the hearts of man. We will have to stand up for love and have a conflict with hatred, just like light and darkness, hate cant drive out hate only Love can do that. I don't know the white experience in this country, but I do have knowledge of God's love, and I know it to be all-consuming. My hope as peacemakers and children of God that they too will forsake the comfortable roles of peacekeepers and stand up and fight for a day when they don't have to suppress their emotions. It pains all of us to see a life taken because it hurts God to see it. We cannot be desensitized to death and injustice in exchange for the comfort of the American dream of yesterday. We need to make America a pleasing aroma in Gods nostrils, not the great stench of death and pain it has been.

As a Black Man and as a Christian I have felt an overwhelming unnatural need to compromise the gospel for convenience. As a result, I now stand convicted with sorrow over opportunities missed and emotions suppressed.  By no means was I an "Uncle Tom for Jesus" but I walked the peacekeeper's path. I should have flipped over more tables; I should have had harder conversations with those that power the system and benefit from it. I don't believe anyone is born a racist and I could imagine its hard to look at life through someone else's experience. However, I should have invited more cops to see it from our perspective; I should have had more conflict in order to make more peace.
 My name will be linked with Joshua Barre more than the officers that shot him. The memory of confirming to his mother that her son is dead is still painful. Hate runs through society so to the point that no one recognized we lost something that was precious to God. The life of someone hurting and lost in mental illness was not mourned. Instead, it was suppressed into a category of justification. He wouldn't have died if he wasn't mentally ill or if he wasn't holding a knife or if he hadn't done whatever justifies a death for convenience. Joshua was just another black boy that couldn't get right; he didn't fit into the system for whatever reason now he is gone. The crowd yelled in unison F*$@ the Police, and I didn't blame them. I felt that way at the time, but I had to push that feeling down cause I had a gospel message to give. I'm sorry if that truth hurts anyone reading this but its the reality of being a man of God with a call but still being black here on earth. I was mad Joshua died, I thought of all of my homeless friends with mental health conditions (90% of them) and prayed Lord not them next. BUT WHY?! Why should I have to fear or mourn for any life because they are broken in the eyes of society? Why should have to tell a mother the life God put together in her whom is now gone? God gives gifts and man destroys them, and yet He keeps giving. I will never understand His ways, but I am grateful that He is an all-knowing God. That assurance is one that I have needed the most in times like these.

I'm raising two black boys into men in a world that may not say they fit in because of their skin or because of their culture. They have been given hate for who they are before discovering who they are. The book The Hate U Give credits a line from a Tupac interview where he explains T.H.UG. L.I.F.E. The Hate U Gave Little Infant's F's Everyone. This is a sad truth that the world needs to see.  My oldest son is an excellent example, he is a great person to know, he is smart and funny and loves with the love of God. But I fear society will stop and reject him at his blackness, a blackness that helped give him his strength, character, and humor. Unfortunately, the beauty of his culture and skin causes fear from a lack of understanding it. He will be invited to drop being black for other warmer tone general titles that will push him away from the image God formed him in. I pray he declines and stays aware of the gradual attempts to decolorize him to make other comfortable for a season. A kid told him that he was unapproachable and I knew why the kid said that. My son is smart and sure when he speaks on what he knows, he is a young man, and people are scared of that. He isn't a follower he doesn't smile because just because something is happening, but he has chosen to have joy, and his joy is shown in his actions, not false gestures. I get that, but I also get that most kids aren't that deep and the kid could have also said that cause unapproachable is typically code for "black-black." It has to be said twice cause the first black is what you're born into, cant change your skin color or birth certificate you are black. The second black explains a cultural thing, this means you are aware and you celebrate it. That means you say things like please don't touch my hair, yes my name is spelled different get over it, and no I'm not pretty or handsome for a black person I'm just a good looking person. The second black means you know you're worth, and you are not comfortable letting people be comfortable with systematic racism. My son is learning that he has a second black and I can image his I can't breathe t-shirt makes some people put him in the unapproachable category. The hate society has given caused that kid to miss out on knowing an excellent young man. But that's thug life for you. The other example of the hate given affecting my son is his unhealthy concern for police. He legit fears them riding behind us, the idea of being pulled over makes him panic. He has seen so many deaths on the news he views being pulled over as a leading cause of blacks death. Its right up there with diabetes, heart disease on his list. The hate given has caused him to not believe in the system because the system has proven it doesn't believe in him.

I'm starting to see more and more every day that God sent me to this community to be something more than I can imagine. The idea of being black-black and Christian isn't two separate things anymore. I use to feel I had to live in different worlds to be an evangelical. I'm talking the true meaning of the word, not the Americanised voter identity category known as the evangelicals. I believe spreading a true gospel message everywhere I go is being an evangelical. I mistook leaving behind a life of sin a for leaving behind my culture and in doing that I misdiagnosed my culture as being sinful. I accused black churches as not having enough teaching and too much praise. Now I see the truth that segregation has brought a lack into the whole church body. We need each other so we can learn to grow together in the Lord. I'm starting to get the more significant meaning of God sending us to the "whitest city in America." We can't effect change at a comfortable distance, we are here to get uncomfortably black-black and love the Lord with all of brothers and sister black, white yellow or brown.  Earlier I said I wish I had more chances to affect change in my past roles. I believe God brought me here to elevate me to a position where I will.  

This weeks show...

This week on our weekly Facebook Live we announced that we will be doing more recording for youtube and changing the Facebook Live to a weekly review. This will allow us to focus on getting the business going and getting ready for all God has for us. 

Tired?! ((Warning Angry Post))

Sometimes you just get tired of the same old thing happening day after day. At some point, things have to have an end. We walk through life dealing with one another and at some point life's path has to come to a conclusion. I sometimes wonder why are we even assigned to this journey in the first place? Why are we walking around inhabited by sin? I love earth, and I love the time I get to have here, but it seems that the people on this planet are not too happy with it. People wake up angry and live life angry. In fairness, the angry indictment is just my judgment. Some people can look mad like me and not be upset at all. Others act out angrily with a smile then say they are not angry. I don't entirely get it, and most of the time none of us really do but its life.

I was accused of being angry for years, it just became easier to accept everyone else's diagnosis behind my facial expressions. People never seemed to assume depression, or better yet maybe he is just in thought. It was always straight to angry because that was easier. Growing up I wish I was born smilier so that I could have gotten the benefit of dought when I made a mistake or lost my temperament as anyone else did. Instead, it was just confirmation that I was crazy or angry. Although I have gotten past some of these things, I still know I'm not allowed the full freedoms of being myself in public. I feel like I have to put on a Stepin Fetchit show and smile and tip my cap to people, so they are comfortable. I don't feel godly doing it I feel fake. I was made in His image, not the worlds view on black men. I AM NOT AN ANGRY BLACK MAN! (I understand writing that in all caps didn't help my case.) I'm a beautiful, STRONG black man. Yes, Beautiful, not good looking or handsome because those things fade, I am beautiful because that comes from within. And the greater that is within me is greater than anything in this world.

I challenge all that have told me that I was angry to explore did I change or did God shift your perspective of Him in me? I admit that I have matured in Christ and my temperament has improved with age. However, I was never that different than most, I just didn't get the same chance as most because of the outside. People see God in me, and that's the only thing that gives me an identity in this world. The people closest to me in life are not here because of my great personality or my dashing good looks they are here because they see God in me. Overall, I praise God for that, and I know that it's a good reason to stick with Him because on the other side of things its loneliness and depression.

I'm writing this from a place of just being tired emotionally and writing it out helps me place my guard down and focus back on Jesus. Without writing it out, I will take the emotions of prior hurts and pains and apply them to the present. I can't let my past choke out my future. I now realize that I was more hurt about life than angry, and now I'm growing into being my optimistic about life. As a result, I feel depression and pain lift off of me daily. I know real hurt, and I truly don't want to add any more back on my life. He who the Son set free is free indeed, and that includes me. I'm free and no longer excepting other peoples anger in any shape or fashion. I understand that if I want a life that is genuinely free I have to stay in sync with Jesus because he said in his word that "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." I want to do things that bring people joy, I understand that I will be rejected, but that's no different than Him. Jesus also said, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first." I have been hated for all the wrong reasons for too long and now its to shift all of hurt and pain from rejection to the cross. I cant handle the anger and sickness that the world wants to put on me but Jesus can. I'm so glad I have a savior that will take it on, I'm so blessed that Jesus is built for this and all I have to do is stay here with Him.

As I journey through this day Lord, I pray that I do not stumble and fall to anger and pain. Lord, I pray that I overcome it and allow the words of my testimony to help someone else overcome it.  Lord, you are a great Father, and I love you for being a God that overcomes it all for your glory. Lord, I thank you for wrapping us up in your glory from one degree of glory to another you are good God!

Let There Be Light?!

In the beginning, God said let there be light, in fact, the bible says in Genesis 1:3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning was the first day. In those verses, it's a simple command and responds, God said, and it was. He told the light to separate from darkness, and they haven't been together since. He created light to shine in its own time, and the darkness has its place too. I wish it were always that simple for us, God says be this way, and I'm just that way. He says stop this habit, and I separate right away. I guess that's the great thing about God and us being precious children to Him and not an element. He provides us with loving grace and mercy that endures throughout our journey with Him. He knows the beginning and end, yet He is still walking the journey with us. He is indeed a good father to us and truly worthy of all of our praise. The lights in the sky are witness to His goodness and His mercy. He lights our path day in the night with the commands of His word from the beginning. Before He formed man, He provided elements for our success. He approved them as good, and because of that approval, they are still in place. No other god can take credit for the beginning and the end and all the greatness that comes between. God truly is love, and His love is evident in rising of the sun and his numbering of the stars.

Jesus in Matthew 5:16 says Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. That verse makes me think that I have to model my life after the stars in the sky. On a daily basis, they show me that He is great when they shine because He said so. My Lord has spoken and has told me to let my light shine, and like the stars, I need to be consistent to show up. I may not feel like it or I may not think my light is bright enough but that didn't change the command to let my light shine. Science shows that the sun is a star no different than others star, other than planets are caught in its orbit. A star has no thoughts or feelings, but if it did, I'm sure it could get jealous of the stars that do have planets orbiting them. Having those planets could make it into a sun, which appears to be the more "important" star job to have. Unfortunately, we humans do have negative thoughts and emotions, and we get jealous or concerned about our purpose. We often see others letting their light shine and ministry orbiting around them, and we wonder when is our time coming. We begin to question is our light bright enough for God to use. We lose track of the source of our light, which is the Son. We forget that our light shines to bring glory to our father in heaven and not ourselves. I praise God cause His command is still valid to the sun, moon, and stars, "let there be light" still provides for me. Now the question is, does the command "let your light shine" still provoke me to provide my light to this hurt and dying world?  

 All stars have a purpose regardless if planets are circling them or not. Genesis 1:16-18 says, And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 And to rule over the day and the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. This teaches me that even if I don't have a church or homeless mission and hundreds of men I still have a place to let my light shine, even if it's from a distance. A star billions of miles away still shines its light based off of Gods command, and it helps provide light to me in the darkest hours. I know that in this season that I miss preaching and one on one teaching that I still need to let my light shine. I have a dream to let my light shine before man through the gifts God gave me. I want God to get glory from my every move and living in the social media age its possible to try and do that on a bigger stage than before. I have caught a vision of what I want to do, and I need to cast the net out and believe that the fish will come in. Its God who knows the beginning and the end and it He who holds our very purpose. As I seek Him the light of truth will consume me and will shine from the inside out.

Real?!

This blog is about to get real! Ask you may know my wife Regina and I quit our job and moved our family to the Portland area because God said so. We tapped out our savings and our retirement and said hey if its God's will, its God's bill! It was all fun and games in the beginning, but now stuff is getting real. Coming here we gave ourselves a 6-month window to get jobs, but that plan has shifted.
Regina and I are going to give birth to a ministry that will bless young girls with free braids and natural hair designs. We will call it 10:30 Braids & Natural Hair Designs from the scripture Matthew 10:30. The scripture says "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Often little girls especially African American are told to adjust their hair as if God Himself didn't make that hair. They are forced to conform to modern trends that may say bleach it or burn it or relax it. Regina and I believe that all of us, are beautifully and wonderfully made by God. It's our take on Psalms 139:14 that says "I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well." Every little girl needs to know very well that she is beautiful and her beauty comes from a creator that loves her so much that He gave her every hair on her head. Don't you just love God? Thank you, Jesus, for loving me first!

But that's what makes this blog real today. January is approaching quickly, and I'm still seeking God on what is it that I'm supposed to do for work. I have no desire to go back into homeless ministry unless I'm using media talents and skills to serve. I do miss helping disciple men, and I do miss preaching. I miss it a lot but not enough to let it be a job that will take me away from the 10:30 ministry. I have no formal education or background that could land a high paying job in Portland, but I'm going to need one come January. I saw a homeless agency list a job similar to what I did in Tulsa, and they wanted a Masters degree. I couldn't imagine having a Masters and making $40,000 in this economy. That job should start at $80,000, but they figure if you want a job helping the homeless, you must do it for love and not the money.  I'm not scared cause I know God sent us here for a reason and the right door will open in the right season. Now I have a few more months to sharpen my skills with a camera and editing. 10:30 has all come from small seeds God has planted, and I have the opportunity to show I can brand and market it. Maybe that will be the resume booster I need to get into the new career field I want to be in. But it's really real now and somewhat scary to know I have to hustle or starve. My last sermon at NBCC Tulsa I read one of best friends lyrics not knowing how real they would feel to me today.


[Verse 1: Jito]
My back was backed all the way to the wall
And it felt like my foundation was cracked and I’d fall
When you’re faced with more questions than answers, it’s hard
They say that help is on the way, to just keep trusting in God
They said help was on the way but I saw nothing at all
So it was either have faith, wait, hustle, or starve
So I got my hustle on, thought I had my hustle strong
Got out there, got hustled, yeah I had my hustle wrong
And we was still hungry, still needed food to eat
Still dead broke, still one move from the streets
Still has access to the steel, I could steal and eat
But I refuse to steal from someone doing bad as me
So with the world on my back like Atlas
I realized that God’s in the lane waiting on that pass
See I tried my way like Usher
Nothing left to do but trust you, I’mma trust ya

My work!

Hey, guys this here are a few of the hair designs I have been working on!