How a Black Pastor and a White Pastor Became Welded As One

It's an amazing story. A black pastor, a white pastor welded together as one. You'll meet that's 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. It really is a great story. It's an amazing story of racial reconciliation and learning to work and serve God together in the midst of very different cultures and backgrounds. At the bottom of the hour I'll be joined by my two guests Jay Stewart and Derek Hawkins as they talk about their new book Weld It and how God brought them together. White pastor, black pastor, white church, black church. How they become one in the Lord. So we'll be talking about that at the bottom of the hour. I think you'll be edified, helped. I plan to ask some probing questions in the midst of so much turmoil and controversy and division in America. How do these men of God sort these things out? Welcome to the broadcast.

This is Michael Brown. So glad to be with you. Phone lines are open. So what I'm going to do in the next twenty something, twenty-five something minutes is answer your questions on any subject under the sun. Anything you want to talk to me about. Theological, spiritual, political, cultural, linguistic, as long as it's an area I can help you with. Anything at all you want to ask me about if you want to dispute something with me. 866-348-7884.

That is the number to call. First I want to comment on a couple things. Is the vaccine the mark of the beast? No.

No, it is not. Now you say why on earth would anyone wonder if some vaccine is the mark of the beast? You might say is it safe?

Should we be taking it? Who should be getting vaccinated? Maybe you're concerned that the government would require this and if you're going to fly on a plane you have to be vaccinated.

If you're going to come into work. You have to be vaccinated. Is that part of a one world system? It's a bit of a leap to get there but some Christians actually think perhaps because there were rumors that there would be a microchip that would be in part of the vaccine.

So when you get vaccinated a chip would be put in you and this would ultimately get around the entire world and everyone would be vaccinated so everyone would have a chip and a one world government would be able to oversee and see exactly who you are and what you're doing or who knows what else. This is not the mark of the beast. You say well how can you be so sure? I can be so sure because the beast is not behind it.

Let me explain what I mean. We can debate the meaning of the mark of the beast in the book of Revelation. I remember hearing for years, I know people decades ago would not give their kids a social security number when they were born and tried to keep that from the government because they said that's the mark of the beast that puts us in the world system. And others you know that you could use a fingerprint for credit card things or for ID and no no we don't want to do that that's the mark of the beast.

Or anything even your credit card information which would just be cash only because credit card is the mark of the beast. I've been hearing all kinds of different theories for years and then over the centuries before we had this technology there were various theories about what the mark of the beast is. And some take it very literally that there will literally be a physical sign that will be put on people that's the mark of the beast. Meaning that when there was an anti-carbon Christ one world ruler then in order to buy or sell under that one world ruler that you have to be marked and it is a literal mark. Others say no it is just a system, it is metaphorical, it is spiritual, it's just referring to a system we shouldn't take it literally after all this is the book of Revelation which is written in apocalyptic literature which is full of symbolism etc. But the reason I can just say so Doug Bradley no this is not the mark of the beast is because we are not being ordered to bow down to a one world government or else. You must have this and submit to this to be part of this one world order or else. Now this gives us a hint of how something like that could happen.

Follow? In other words the COVID-19 situation gives us a hint of how much government overreach there could be. Of how even churches sometimes can lose their way in terms of what's right and not right. What's being cautious and careful and what's kowtowing to government overreach in unfair ways.

What's loving my neighbor, what's walking in fear. All kinds of questions that come up which are good questions to ask and process and work through in my book When the World Stops written in the midst of the COVID crisis I try to address these issues practically. But this gives us a glimpse of how something could happen where there could be a one world government and the government says in order to participate in normal life you have to do certain things and we have to get certain information about you and therefore we can control your lives. And if your religious convictions run against that then you're going to have to choose between living or having your religious convictions. What could happen and this is a glimpse of it. Again what if your boss says hey for the safety of our employees you have to be vaccinated if you're going to keep your job. Hey you have to fly for your job well in order to fly you have to be vaccinated or the airlines won't have you on.

What if a local grocery store wants proof of vaccination before you can come in and shop. In other words these are the types of potential scenarios that people could see based on which there could be some ultimate type of mark of the beast system. But this is not it.

This is not it. You should be evaluating the safety of the vaccine whether it is wise and prudent to take the vaccine based on safety issues and not based on concerns that this is the mark of the beast. Just wanted to say that put that out and look I'm not 100 years old but I'm 65 and I came to faith in 1971 at the age of 16 so I've been around now in the Lord for 49 years. And I've heard a whole lot and seen a whole lot of speculation.

I can tell you is that all the speculation thus far has been wrong and all the predictions and dates that in this far have been wrong. I remember on a sales call once talking to a woman and she said this is during the days when Reagan was president she goes to the Antichrist. Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan. Oh well we heard it was Mikhail Gorbachev because he had the birthmark is the marks these guys got some mark and Ronald Reagan.

I swear you get that she said Ronald Wilson Reagan six letters in each of his name 666 and she was dead serious. So friends. This is not the mark of the beast evaluate this based on safety and where you feel there could be government overreach then that's a fair independent question to ask just don't tie it in with the book of Revelation and the end of the world. Fair enough. All right. Let's go to the phones and we'll start with Robert Mountain Home, Texas. Welcome to the line of fire.

Thank you. I have a pretty good working operational working of Exodus 15 26 healing related to their my question is in first Corinthians 15 first Corinthians 6 18 referring to adultery said he you know the immoral person sins against his own body which I'm assuming that there are physical maladies that happen with that. My question and then spit some 107 17 to 20 you know in 19 then they crowd the Lord and their troubles save them from their stresses he's in his word and heal them live with them from their instructions. Maybe my ultimate question is is is it exegetically and hermeneutically and what other principles of interpretation to say that some 107 17 through 20 provides healing for first Corinthians 6 18 violations versus Exodus 15 26 which is based on obedience right if you obey right so I appreciate the question. First I would say that first Corinthians 6 18 does that explicitly say that you will become sick because of the sin you know get a sexually transmitted disease or something but rather you're sinning against your own body it is it is a bodily act a bodily violation where you were joining your body with someone else's body and it's not just thinking a wrong thought it's not just speaking a wrong word it's not like stealing something you are joining your body in a sinful way with someone else's body so therefore sinning against your own body. Now where I would go with that is if there were consequences of that if if there were divine judgments or simply reaping what we're sowing and you can try to sexually transmitted disease I would simply go to James Jacob the fifth chapter where if you're sick you call for the elders and the prayer off their knowledge with oil the prayer offered in faith to make the sick person whole and if they've committed sins they'll be forgiven. So the implication is they could well be sick because of their sin but when they come in this posture of asking for prayer obviously a posture of dependence and repentance that if they have sin if their sin has contributed to the sickness they'll be forgiven. In the same way yeah I would say that that Psalm 107 culminating with those wonderful words vayishlach devarov vayir pa'im and he sent his word and healed them is that would indicate that many times that there was sickness because of sin. If you think of the Psalms, Psalm 6, Psalm 30, Psalm 38, Psalm 41 there's reference in those Psalms to sin and then pleading for mercy and in some of those Psalms is explicit reference to sickness. So it's understood I'm sick because I send and I'm under divine judgment when I ask God for mercy I'm also asking for healing as well as forgiveness so those themes definitely go hand in hand there's the promise of God keeping us free from sickness and disease as we walk in obedience a promise that was given to ancient Israel on a national level. And there are times when sickness is completely unrelated to sin but many times it is related. 1 Corinthians 11 the fact that people had died and others were sick was because of sin and violating the integrity of the Lord's table.

So yes in those cases we cry out for mercy and the mercy includes forgiveness of sin and healing of disease they they often go in hand and hand. All right going to get to a few more calls got to share another news item with you and then to our special guests at the bottom of the hour 866-344-TRUTH. Remember if you don't get my emails every week you want to sign up we got some special goodies that we send your way when you do plus we'll keep you informed and up to date.

So go to AskDrBrown.org ASKDRBrown.org sign up today we'd love to be in regular contact with you we'll be right back. Oh God of burning cleansing flame send the fire. It's the line of fire with your host Dr. Michael Brown get into the line of fire now by calling 866-344-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks friends for joining us on the line of fire 866-344-TRUTH. Just taking some random questions and then getting to our special guests at the bottom of the hour.

A couple Facebook comments Sean glad you got to see me with Perry Atkinson on Dove TV today always great to be on with him. David commented about the mark of the beast doesn't that refer to Nero. If it doesn't directly refer to Nero in other words if the book of Revelation was not primarily referring to first century events it still had to have application to Nero. In other words what would have been the equivalent of the mark of the beast then it would have been basically that you you swear loyalty to Caesar or you die. That you're when you're told to sacrifice to Caesar that you do and you thereby deny your faith. It would be that kind of principle and then Travis for it to be the mark of the beast you need to know who the beast is read your Bibles. Yeah again it's not just some abstract thing anything that government imposes on us becomes the mark of the beast. But this is what I'd be concerned about putting the vaccine question aside on a daily basis am I true to my faith or do I deny my convictions in order to fit.

That's the bigger issue because that's what it's ultimately going to come down to. Okay I saw this news item posted today and it was about aliens and it said this that the headline said this that it could be that the Milky Way may be full of 80 aliens who annihilated themselves. Read that again Milky Way may be full of aliens who annihilated themselves study says research suggests intelligent life may have emerged 8 billion years after the Milky Way formed but then the aliens somehow annihilated themselves and are no more.

Now I am not a scientist I do not have strong scientific background that's an understatement I've often explained why but here's the history. When I was in high school and we started to get to the more serious science classes so these are not going to prepare the way for your college studies and more advanced studies. I was paying no attention because I was getting high okay then I got radically born again but by the time I got radically born again I had helped lead a strike in our school where we ended up advocating for our own school within the school. Which we got strikingly enough called safe school which stood for student and faculty education we had about 60 70 of the most radical kids in the school with four radical professors or teachers. And we got out of school we started school the same time in the morning but we got out at noon everyone else got out at three. We could take subjects we want it not take subjects, so I had no formal education last two years of high school, other than band and orchestra, everything else was pass fail show up or not, it was.

So I had no science classes then and then once I got into college ended up specializing in languages and things so I had no science classes, really from midway through high school paying serious attention so I've read some and learn some but obviously. I have, I have no way in my own scientific background which is almost nothing to evaluate arguments like this and posts like this but here to me is the irony. All right.

And I know there must be more to this and something they allegedly discovered somehow. Right. But here's what this is what it feels like to me.

Okay. So in terms of being a scientific layman, this is what it sounds like to me. We look at the universe, right, and science can give us no good explanations for the origin of the universe, or the origin of life, or the origin of DNA. And then many would say well for our universe to come together, just completely by chance to end up with what we have with an earth that sustains life. It's just random chance, even if there was somewhere where the material came from. Right, and somehow that this thing got started, you know my friend Frank Turk says I've got no problem with a big bang you just need a big banger right who, who made the thing happen that there are scientists who say, you know, 14 billion years is not enough time for this to happen.

And, and, you know, to just get it right, where you, the chances are, are almost infinitely low. So, there must be many, many, many, many, many universes multiverse. There's an endless number of other universes, and ours is the one that happened to get things right so we ended up with life on Earth. But well hang on, is there actually any evidence of the existence of any other universe outside of our universe which we keep learning about?

No, no it's positive. Oh, so in other words, in other words, because there's no scientific explanation for the origin of the universe there's no scientific explanation for the origin of life there's no scientific explanation for the origin of DNA I mean plausible scientific explanations. And it seems implausible or unlikely that in 14 billion years things could just happen to evolve to end up with us here that there must be all these other universes. There must be it's like, so hang on, rather than take the logical explanation, which is that an intelligent being eternal being created all this. Now you're going to posit something entirely different so when I see a headline like this, I'm thinking okay, there is no actual evidence of life out there, so it must have all been out there, and then disappeared, and that's why it's not there.

Does it strike you as illogical as it strikes me? I remember Nancy and I were visiting some friends, and their daughter was about two years old, and we got over there, and we're hanging out talking with them. And they said, how would you drive over here we said fine. They said, no problems. No, no accident you see. No, you weren't almost an accident. No, thank God. Because our daughter, she just kept praying for you. Pray, you know, no accident, have them no accident, you know, two years old. She said thank God God answered her prayers like maybe God answered her prayers, or maybe there was no problems, just a little two year old, got this thought in her mind.

In other words, it wasn't that she miraculously stopped it from happening. It reminds me of another story. There's a guy standing on a street corner in Manhattan, and he's clapping his hands, he's clapping his hands, he's clapping his hands. And someone comes up to him and says, Mr. What are you doing? He said I'm keeping the crocodiles away.

And says, God looks at him and says, Mr. There are no crocodiles for like 200 miles from here. You see, it's working.

So that's, I read this article again with my lack of scientific knowledge. That's what comes to mind. All right. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let's go to Greg in High Point, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Okay.

Thank you. Do you hear me? Yeah.

Are you speaking right into the phone, sir? Yeah. All right.

Go ahead. Okay. My question is, it says, I heard preachers talk about, at Judgment Day, everybody has to answer for everything, whether good or bad. And I'm thinking, how do you answer God for the sins? Right.

So, yes. So so for believers, right, we're not being judged in terms of whether we're saved or not, but we are giving account for our lives. And it does say in Romans 14 that will give account. It does say in Second Corinthians five that will give account for good or bad. It does say in Matthew 12 that we'll have to give account for every idle word that we speak. So I understand it, Greg, that it's not going to be that I have to explain every sin that I've committed as much as give account for my life, give account for my actions.

And and here's the deal. God being God could do everything in a completely cerebral cerebral way. In other words, in a split second, our entire life could pass before us in a split second. God could intuit our response before we even say a word in a split second. We can feel rebuked and corrected and weep before him. And then from there, every tear removed and we go into the eternal age.

In other words, it's it doesn't have to be a process where we sit and review every single item, because, yeah, how long is that going to take? And then what are we going to say? And is God going to bring up every unclean and sinful memory? But it is something sobering. It is something serious. And and Leonard Ravenhill, dear friend, the last five years of his life, he would preach on the judgment seat of Christ. And it was an overwhelmingly intense and serious message.

And it's one that we really we don't hear about anymore. We hardly preach about because we just want everyone to feel good. So we need to be secure in the Father's love and know that the blood of Jesus has washed us clean before the Lord. And in that sense, we're not giving account for sin that we've been cleansed of, but rather giving account for our lives.

So look at it like this. Let's say that for years I was drunk and never showed up at work. And then I get radically, wonderfully saved. And when I stand before the Lord, he's not going to say, well, what about when you're out there drinking? But let's say he had called me to the business world and called me to raise money for the poor in my community. And instead I spent all the money I had on luxurious living, but I was still a believer. Then I'm going to have to give account. OK, I gave you that assignment.

How did you do in that assignment? And and it is going to be a sobering time. I remember Leonard Ravenhill, September of of ninety four at the age of eighty seven, had a stroke and never came out of it until November around Thanksgiving when he went to be with the Lord. And I remember his wife, Martha, saying to me, well, it's good. It gave him time to prepare before going to the judgment seat.

I thought, well, that's that's very serious. So we go secure that we're loved by the father. But just like the boss calls and says, OK, how did you do in your quota? We will give account and there will be rewards. And ultimately, the words we want to hear are well done, good and faithful servant.

All right. We'll be right back with our special guests. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling eight six six three four.

True. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I'm holding in my hands an amazing new book telling an amazing story.

Welded forming racial bonds that last. Derek Hawkins and Jay Stewart and better than hell, the book in my hands. They are both right here with me, these two passages, these two men of God that God has joined together. And we get to hear their story today. So, brothers, great to have you with us on the line of fire. Dr. Brown, thank you so much for having us, man. I'm telling you, one of the most humble men that I've ever met in my life. All right.

Yeah. Thank you for the invite. Just appreciate the honor of being with you. We're friends.

We go way back. But boy, to be here with you today is awesome. What a joy. I'm so thrilled to be able to have you both here. So, Jay, I've known you for a while. How is it that you and Derek connect?

And, you know, just give it. It's an amazing story, a long story. But I want to get your each of your perspectives. Sure. And then once we lay that out, talk about we were all Americans living in the same country, loving the same God as believers, and yet sometimes our perspectives are so different. Unless we really get welded together, we'll never know. So how does the story start from your perspective, Jay?

So it really goes back to 2014. I walked out into our concourse after one of our services. I'm always out there greeting people. And a tall, young African-American man comes up to me and introduces himself, says, Hey, I'm about to take over a church.

Could I possibly meet with you for some coaching and mentoring? And you've done that with other pastors. I have, and that's my heart.

And so that was an easy yes for me. And so I was leaving for sabbatical, but we connected right after that, began meeting and met consistently for about the next 18 months. And God just formed this very special relationship between us. It was really a Holy Spirit thing that happened with us. And Derek, how did you get joined, drawn to Jay in the first place?

Well, I think it was my wife who asked me to do something on a Saturday morning, leave the compass of my very comfortable, cozy couch that Saturday morning and take my daughter to get her hair done in downtown Salisbury. And there, Pastor Jay has another campus called our Salisbury location. I call the number once I've seen this huge sign that says refuge. I'm taking over a church that says it's called the House of Refuge Deliverance Ministries.

And ironically, there's a sign that says the refuge. So I'm really, Dr. Brown, really just intrigued by the sign, except when I call the number, it doesn't leave me to Salisbury, it leads me to the Kannapolis location just outside of Charlotte. And so when I pick up the phone and the receptionist on the other end connects me with the graphic designer who then says, hey, I'm willing to sit down and meet with you.

His name is Marcello. We meet in the mugshot coffee area just outside of our campus at our Kannapolis location. And we meet. He says, you need to meet Pastor Jay Stewart. He's an apostolic father and there's something that you need to get from him. I went back and asked my leaders at that time, hey, do you mind if I go check out this service? And they gave me the permission to do so. And I was just blown away by the presence of God that I felt inside of that service that that Sunday morning.

Banning Lipsure was there preaching on revival. And I never felt the presence of God. So as Pastor Jay interjected earlier that we just connected for 18 months. But on the way home that day, I remember crying just the presence of God filled my car. I could feel the tangible presence of the Lord. And I knew then that God was up to something. I just didn't know what he was up to.

All right. So you forge a relationship there. There are plenty of relationships, multiracial relationships, multiethnic relations with with leaders, men and women of God. That happens all the time. But something deeper happens between your your two churches. So, Jay, what what happened next that makes this such an amazing story? So about 18 months into us meeting and it wasn't just Derek and I that were meeting, his wife would come. He would bring other leaders and actually the founding pastors he was about to take over for. They started coming.

And so we met every single month. And really, my goal was to help the kingdom get better. We say at the Refuge all the time, we're not trying to build a castle. We want to build the kingdom. And so there was never thought of a merger.

There was never thought of, hey, there's a book coming in at some point. I just wanted to help them and set them up for success with this beautiful relationship. But one day while we were meeting about 18 months into it, I hear the Holy Spirit say to me, ask them if they've ever talked about becoming a campus of the Refuge. And Dr. Brown, I said in that moment internally to the Lord, imagine this. I had the audacity to tell God, no, I will not do that because I didn't want them to think I had an agenda in this. And so this battle goes on inside of me for about five minutes. And finally, I yielded to the Holy Spirit and I said, hey, I need to ask you guys a question. You know my heart, but have you ever had conversations about becoming a campus of the Refuge? So this would, some might think, okay, you're just like corporate takeover, or the white church is going to incorporate the black church. I mean, all this stuff going through your head, but you felt the Lord was saying to do it.

Yes. And so when I asked the question, they all started laughing. Which really caught me off guard. And then they said, oh, pastor, we talk about it all the time. And it was probably at that moment we realized there was something bigger unfolding that we just did not see coming. And then it was set to the backdrop, we made the announcement, set to the backdrop of great division in the city of Charlotte.

It was on the national news because of a police involved shooting. And in the midst of that, it was like God said, I'm going to write a better narrative. And our story went national with that as a backdrop, with the shooting and the division, the rioting, all that was going on.

This was 2016 in Charlotte. And we just became aware there's something bigger unfolding. So Derek, from your perspective, on the other side of this, what was the bigger thing that God was wanting to do through this? And I think now that I think about it, I think racial reconciliation and unity is on the heart of God.

And I knew that that's now I can see that that that was the bigger narrative. At that time, for me, I was looking for mentorship and coaching and pastoring. And I've shared this story before, but I was seeking for someone just to pour into me about my identity and what God was calling me into as a young pastor. It didn't matter to me that Pastor J was a white middle aged guy, just mattered to me that a man was concerned enough about my soul and my leadership development.

Not only that, my personal development as a husband and as a father. So I never looked at the backdrop of the story that, hey, God will utilize this story to help get a message out to the world. But, you know, it was just me really just trying to get guidance from a mentor, from a person now has become a spiritual father to me. And so it's always been about relationship. It's never been about the narrative that, hey, God would release a book to us or give us opportunity to speak and use the story. It was always about relationship. And from that, the Holy Spirit breathed on it.

It's become so much more than that. My friends, the book Welded, Forming Racial Bonds That Last, Derek Hawkins and Jay Stewart, both in the studio with me. Derek, what's your hope for this book? Why did you and Jay write it? What do you hope will happen to those that read it?

Well, I prayed a kind of crazy prayer, God, if it never goes anywhere, but it goes to the people that you desire that have a heart to see change and transformation in our nation. So, God, let the book go go there. So my prayers that when people read this book, that there will be a perspective change and awareness change, but also that we have the ability to make changes inside of our churches, businesses, inside of our world that can make the world a better place by doing our part. And so all we want to do is create an awareness. But we know that we can't create unity, but we can protect unity, according to Ephesians four and three. So our job is just that this will be just an eye opener to people that don't know the consequences or just the decisions that we make every day, that there's a ripple effect to obedience and disobedience, as Pastor Jay shares in one of our chapters, that just being obedient by reading it. And then when you read it, act it out, live it out inside of your own echo chambers in your own communities.

Got it. So, Jay, with one of the largest churches in our in our area here outside of Charlotte and with a demographic that would be largely white. What what have you learned as you've worked with Derek and and this church has now become part of the larger refuge family? What have you learned?

What perspectives have changed on your end? One of the great lessons, I believe, and we write about it in the book, there's a chapter entitled We Are Better Together. And I've learned more than I knew before that there's this divine orchestration of diversity that causes the body of Christ to reach its full potential as the Lord brings us together.

And in order for that to happen, one of the things I've learned is we have to learn to appreciate our differences and not just tolerate the differences that we really are better together. That's the beauty of covenant goes all the way back to Genesis 15, where families would come together and covenant because they recognize in another family attributes that they did not possess. And I believe that happens in the body of Christ.

You go you look at Acts Chapter two. There was multi ethnic representation in the upper room where they came together and then out of that flowed this great revival. And that's what we desire to see happen. We write about the last chapter of the book that there's a revival is at stake.

Unity is always a prerequisite for revival. If we want to be the fulfillment of the last prayer that Jesus prayed before going to the cross in John 17, then we've got to learn to come together. And it's not just, you know, kumbaya, wash each other's feet, have one service.

It's much more than that. And we talk about the struggles and the challenges. But David, the psalmist paints a beautiful picture in someone 33 about brothers who dwell together in unity, and that's our desire. And God's teaching us to walk this thing out now for the last six, seven years.

And Derek, from your perspective, we've got all about two and a half minutes before before the break. What would you say have been some of the most interesting challenges that you and your folks have had to overcome in working together as closely as you have? I try to look at it in the same perspective as I look at marriages. I don't know if it's challenges or growth opportunities because it gives us an opportunity to learn from each other. So learning from each other, you learn what works and what doesn't work. You also get to learn a person for who they are. And so just for me, it's been a chance for me to learn different worship styles, organization and leadership, team building exercises. But also I learned how to be a better pastor by the leadership of the refuge and Pastor J.

And so some of those contents and confines that we see inside of our Christendom and church demographics. You don't understand what we can do when he says that we're better together. We really are better together. So I've learned a lot that I can take just from him, just learning how to be prioritizing family and not just not just, you know, doing this thing that we can do this thing. But no, man, we can actually do it through the leading of the Holy Spirit. And God is raising this church to do something amazing that I would have never thought even possible without this man's guidance and leadership in my life.

And I've learned so much from him and leading the church and becoming a healthy church. We had no diversity before. I'm talking about zero point, maybe point one percent diversity. But now our church is becoming multiethnic. Not only that, more diverse than it's ever been because of the leadership of the refuge.

Amazing. And when you talk about marriage, the goal is not to get the husband to become like the wife or the wife to become the husband, but to form that loving union where one, you can do things you couldn't do. You know, one of my friends, white pastor in New York, was meeting with black pastors, Hispanic pastors, know the white pastors. And he said, OK, what's your when you meet like what's your number one value, the most important thing? And the white pastor is like, bottom line, get to the bottom line.

What's the bottom line? And the black pastors honor honoring the Hispanic pastors. Let's have a party. All right.

We'll be right back. Change the world. Change the world. It's the Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural and spiritual revolution.

Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. OK, I'm looking at the endorsements, which is almost like a book in itself in the front of weld it forming racial bonds that last pastors, Derek Hawkins and Jay Stewart.

I mean, you're talking about people like Tony Evans and Robert Morris, you know, some of the leading pastors in America, Samuel Rodriguez. You've got black, white, Hispanic, some of the top names in America endorsing this book. It's it's not just edifying, but it's practical. It's inspiring.

It's practical. And it's so absolutely critical in our day. Again, the book, well, that you can check it out on on Amazon or is there, Derek, is there a website folks can go to? Yeah, OK, WorldItBook.com. You can go to WorldItBook.com and order a copy of the book or ChristianBooks.com to order a copy. But we're basically sending everybody to Amazon. You can go over to Amazon right now. And then what we're asking people to do is not just order one copy, but order two copies.

We want you to sew a book into somebody of a different ethnicity than you and spread the message of World It across the world. I got it. So two copies when you order. All right. Two copies.

So, Derek, let me let me go over to you for a moment. We've lived through a very tumultuous year now, 2020. And one of the great, great challenges has been the deaths of people like George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery and others. And and then the the protests and then riots. So there are obviously causes that deserve attention and there are things that just become causes for disruption, et cetera, to sort that out. You know, the statement that Black Lives Matter versus the BLM movement, a tremendously controversial moment. And then the elections.

So when you have white evangelicals tend to vote one way, black evangelicals tend to vote another way. How did you process this in your relationship between the churches, you as men of God? How do you process difficult times like this? You just avoid the issues. Would you speak into them? Nothing that we've been very head on about the issues. We had a racial reconciliation night a few months back and we really hit the tough issues because had a lot of white people coming up to me saying, hey, man, you guys hate cops. And we don't hate cops.

It's just anything that you see this negative. We want to make sure that we get good cops. And it's the same thing is said, does black lives matter? And I said this to Pastor J. I'm a hashtag. I don't have to have to be a hashtag.

I have to quote a hashtag. I am a black live and I don't know my life matters, but that doesn't mean that I support the organization. Right. Black Lives Matter. And there's a difference. And so you have to draw the line between truth. And I think that we have to stand on truth.

And I think most people don't have an understanding of what we mean or different things that come because there's not relationship. Pastor J and I, that's not just my pastor. That's a spiritual father.

So there's been times in our conversation where we sit down and we just have hard dialog. And maybe he says, man, I didn't know that. Or maybe he said, I mean, I never heard that, Pastor J. We actually watched the Ahmaud Arbery video together. That was his first time seeing it.

My first time seeing it at the same time. And then I didn't ask him to have to put a post about it. He knew how it resonated with me as an African-American son. So the thing is, do we need to, I hate the spirit of riot because I think it destroys our communities. I think it, you know, defames what so many hardworking African-Americans and white Americans have built together. And there's so many different ethnicities that have helped build our country in such a magnificent way. So protests are different spirits than riots. I'm totally against the riot.

I think it defames what we work so hard for to build our country in the right way. Got it. So the key thing is to have the conversations. And that's why I've benefited just by being on talk radio and having people call and share their life experience is so different than mine.

It really helped shape my perspective. And, you know, Jay, I did a little Twitter poll the other day and I said, when did you learn that the Southern Baptist Convention, Southern Baptist denomination was formed specifically to break away from the Northern Baptists because the Southern Baptists wanted to keep their slaves? And I said, when did you first learn this? And the options were just now, within the last year, within the last 10 years, or always knew it.

And the largest percentage was just now. So to a black American Christian, it's like, what? He's learned that now to a white Christian, it's like, oh, I had no idea.

There's a lot of learning experiences that we both have going through this. So, Jay, how did you process this on your end as a white Christian leader in the midst of the riots protests? What did you feel your responsibilities were? I felt as a leader and a pastor, especially as a white influential leader, that it was very important and imperative that we can constantly point people back to the gospel. That's the great uniter.

The Holy Spirit is the great uniter. So we kept pointing people back to the gospel, but we were not afraid to speak head on with some of the issues that were so pertinent. You know, in our culture and in our day, we felt like that was important that we courageously address those things. But here's a principle we've tried to operate under and it says that we seek to understand more than we seek to be understood. So when we sit down at the table and we have uncomfortable conversations, most of the time people come with their agenda and they want to make sure when they walk away from the table that that person on the other side of the table understands them. We said, lay that down and come to the table with the goal of understanding the other person more. And the second thing, Dr. Brown, is that we have valued relationship more than we value being right.

Everything flows out of relationship. And we've said, you know what? If we can't agree, the thing that's most important is that we guard the relationship. That's what the Bible calls for us to do is to protect unity. As Derek mentioned earlier, only the Holy Spirit can create unity. Our job is to protect unity, to fiercely fight for that. So we've tried to lead people and say, look, we can have tough conversations, but here's some things we have to keep in mind when we do. If we're going to be the fulfillment of John 17, if we're going to find that place that the Lord commands his blessing like Psalm 133 talks about, I believe we have to operate under those principles.

Absolutely. And obviously things do come back to simple gospel truths and ultimately love. And it's not a matter of trying to be woke or trying to prove something because people can see through that anyway. It's so superficial, right?

But because you genuinely love, you want to get this right. And, you know, I was interacting with a black friend the other day and he said, you know, he said, we see, you know, as known as a Jewish person, he said, we look at slavery segregation the way you look at the Holocaust. He said, how, as in so many white Christians kind of shrug their shoulders like, well, it's past. That's not the way things are anymore.

And but many times it's not because of a racist attitude, it's simply based on ignorance, not having information. And the thing is, OK, we have to have let let our worlds be rocked, but let them be based on truth and love. So. So, Derek, what would you say has been eye opening for you to learn with your greater interaction with white Christians and white church than maybe you've ever had in your life, if you give us like a minute, what would you say has been maybe the most eye opening thing from your perspective?

It's probably not going to be as deep as you think, but white people can cook. Some of the best meals of my life. I love the answer.

So it's just been that. I've learned the sense of family and really community being around Pastor J and other pastors from the refuge. They really taught me a sense of family. And because of that and their depth in the word of God, I mean, really devoted themselves. I've seen this man get up every morning, four or five o'clock in the morning and devote himself to reading the word and praying his life of consecration. And to see so many similarities and the things that the Lord has woven inside of my heart and my life. And it's admirable for me to be able to look at that and see it. And that's the DNA bigger than race, bigger than what's going on in the election or politics or anything of that nature. When we get back down to the core of things, we both want to see the same things.

Our love for Christ and our love for God and family and our church supersedes the divisiveness that the enemy will use to separate us. And so that's one of the things I learned the most. Awesome.

Awesome. Yeah, it's so, so critically important and healthy to lay these things out. And J, I don't know if you have anything as profound about the cooking thing, but one minute, what would be the most eye opening thing for you? Well, Pastor Derek has elevated my shoe game for sure. But I have such a great appreciation and love for the prayer life of many African-Americans. And it goes all the way back and we write about the history of why there's such a prayer anointing on African-Americans.

We write about it in the last chapter I do. And I've really been challenged by that. I've been provoked in a good way by the depth of their prayer life and how they press into the presence of God. And it really has made me a better person. Pastor, I am such a better man because of Pastor Derek Hawkins and all of our people at our Greensburg campus. Yeah. And let me let me say something from the heart here.

And this is not manufactured. Folks, you know, I'm on the air every day and it's 12 years of daily radio. But I genuinely feel from the heart, just sitting here with my two brothers and having this conversation, I feel like a better person for it.

I feel personally enriched by their love for one another, their love for God, and just laying out what really matters, these fundamental truths. So friends, here's the deal. We've only got a minute left and with two preachers sitting in the room. Well, three actually.

Three, but two I'm interviewing. So I could say, you know, closing word. But here, let's let's try this.

All right. Fifteen seconds. Derek, what are you hoping will happen to readers of this book? That their lives will be transformed and that the presence of the Lord will break down any stigma, any racial barriers, anything that will prevent the gospel from spreading. Awesome.

Jay, what about you? Fifteen seconds. They're going to learn things about history. They're going to learn theology.

And I believe they're going to be provoked to hunger for revival like never before. Awesome. All right. Here's the book. Weld it. This is the name of the book. You can go to weldedbook.com or they're encouraging you just go to Amazon. Get two copies. You've got doctor's orders there. I get two copies of the book.

Derek Hawkins and Jay Stewart. And then listen, as an author, I can tell you it's a real blessing if the book blesses you. Tell other friends on social media. Take a picture of it. Put a link to Amazon. Post a review. Yes. Get the word out. It is a I don't know, a more important message for the body right now than what these brothers are bringing. God bless you.