For the Kingdom | Dr. Adely Charles

Hi, this is Bernie Dake. You're listening to The Salvation Army's Words of Life.

Welcome back to Words of Life. I'm Bernie Dake. And I'm Cheryl Gillum. This is our final episode in our series of interviews created by our friend, E.B.

Throughout this series, E.B. has interviewed people of all walks of life to find out how God is doing incredible things in their lives and communities. Today, we hear from a good friend of ours, Bernie. The doctor. The doctor, Dr. Adlai Charles. Yeah, Adlai is one of the sweetest men on the planet Earth.

100% agree. To know him is to love him. He is the son of Salvation Army officers from Haiti, originally living in Florida.

He's now a husband and a father. And he has a doctor of worship studies, which is pretty impressive when you think about it. He's a freakishly good guitar player. I mean, the guy's fingers just work.

It's a gift from God. There's no other way to describe it. And when he's involved in the leadership of worship or teaching people about worship, he's just so engaging. And I'm grateful to know him, but I'm more encouraged for our listeners to get to know him. Can't wait for what he brings out of him. He lives it. It's not even what he's teaching. This is just who he is. He just exudes discipleship and worship. So you can't help but just kind of be enveloped into that.

I hope that you're feeling the love because there's no other way to talk about Adlai but do it with love. And I hope that you're encouraged by his testimony as well. I would say get real about where you're at. Don't try to put up a front. If you know you have sins, start keeping you from drawing closer to the Lord. Repent, which means turn away from.

Turn away from. Today, I have the privilege of sitting with Dr. Adlai Charles. How are you doing, doc?

Hanging in there, bruh. It's good to be on this podcast with you to be able to share what God's been doing. So I'm very excited for this conversation. So if somebody were to say, Adlai, tell me a little bit about yourself.

How would you describe that? Well, I'll just keep my story short. So I'm a child of officers who were originally from Haiti. So I'm from the Caribbean territory. I was born in Montreal on November 25th, 1980. All I can recollect is that my parents said I was born during a blizzard.

So never seen snow and I don't know even what that looks like. Tell me a little bit about your family. Wife, kids. I have a beautiful wife, Maggie Charles, that I love to life. We met back in the days in the AOL chat room, out of all places. But we've connected since 1999. And I believe from the day I spoke to her on the phone, I've fallen in love already.

But you know, back in the days when you meet people online, you ain't trying to do nothing crazy like connect because you don't know if that person's who they truly are. But it was divinely appointed for us to be together. And we're blessed with two gorgeous and wonderful boys who keep us in tune with everything going on in life.

Christian was 13 and Josiah was 10. And honestly, I'm not able to do what I do without their support, especially my wife. She's been very supportive and loves what I do. And she also helps in any way that she can.

What you don't see is when I go home and I'm discouraged. She's the one that's always there to kind of remind me of why we do what we do and why I'm where I am. So she plays a huge part in who Adlai is and what I do as far as ministry. Definitely, definitely. And definitely your boys, Chris and Josiah, definitely keep you both on your toes.

Thank God for those boys. So you sit there and say that, you know, she helps remind you of why you do what you do. If somebody were to say, Dr. Adlai, what's your calling in life? How would you describe that to them? Honestly, I know it sounds cliche or like kind of, you know, Christian jargon, but it's just to be like Christ.

And it's to serve within my capacity, within my giftings and talents to see people come to a knowledge of who Jesus is and to want to follow him. And I've been blessed to be able to do that through music, which for our generation, this current generation is a big deal. And just discipling people, you know, opening my home to them and just being transparent in my life with them so that they can see, hey, you know, being a Christian is not always easy. Like this is tough times. You know, when I was diagnosed with lupus, that was a tough time for me.

I'm like, Lord, like, did you forget about me? But people were able to see that and then see me overcome and persevere through that. It's only because of God's strength. So that's been really helpful to me to know that my calling is not about who I am and what I've attained as far as education. But everything that the Lord has given me, it's for his glory, it's for his kingdom. So that's how I see my ministry or my calling is to serve the Lord through what he's already provided. So especially for our listeners, those who are leaders, you know, if you're not currently mentoring somebody, if you're not currently discipling someone, I would encourage you to identify maybe a young person or maybe even an adult who is in your congregation or in your community or at your workplace who you can just begin doing life with, finding ways to be transparent, be vulnerable and find, I guess you could say, a creative way to share the gospel with them.

Like they need to know Jesus and what better person than for God to use you to do that. And I want to add, E.B., one thing that we always talk about together, even in our lunch, accountability. It is as a leader, you must find somebody who's going to hold you accountable and help you to grow. And I've always used this sentence all my life is me keeping you accountable is not me judging you because I'm trying to help you to grow and stick to what we say we believe. So if I see you acting up and that's not who we are as believers, I'm going to tell you and I expect you to do the same thing. And that should not be a way for us to have beef or to not like each other.

That's something you should actually welcome because I've seen a lot of leaders who had the platform because they didn't have accountability. The enemy attacked them and they fell down to their face. And it's hurt not only them and their families, but it's hurt our representation of who Jesus Christ is.

Definitely, yeah. In those moments, right, when people aren't being held accountable, as he said, it hurts that representation of who Jesus is for other people. Now, us who know Jesus, we know that there's people who are falling, but people who are still struggling and people who are, in a sense, shallow Christians, it's hard for them to begin to figure out how to live when people who they've entrusted their livelihood to, so to speak, who they've seen grow up in the church, who they've seen pour into them, who they told them, this is the way you should live. And they go live a different way.

And it's just like, well, if he did it or if she did it, then, you know, why can't I do the same way? And that's why we always have to try to find ways to point people to Jesus and not necessarily to point them to our pulpits and our platforms, because we can easily fail. But we have a Jesus who we know who has not failed and will never fail. And that's, you know, that's his word.

And he lives by that truth. Adlai, you had the opportunity to see a lot, to do a lot, to experience a lot. But I know within the past few years, one of, I won't necessarily, it could have been a challenge, but it didn't seem like a challenge, because from my understanding, you made straight A's during this process. But you received your doctorate degree. Tell the people a little bit about, you know, that journey, that experience, what you got your doctorate in and what you wrote your dissertation in. So coming in as an ADMB, even in the music department here, when Stephen Byrne, Major Murphy brought me in, I felt that I didn't have enough, on the biblical side of things, to be able to help people grow. And I'm like, I can't be that type of leader who's just going to wing it.

I really need to know what does set the Lord, to be able to break it down to people and they can understand what it means if they ask me questions, for instance. And like you said, it was a hard five years, it'd be every day after work. I would spend time with the family, but from 8.30 to midnight for five years in a row, I was studying. And my thesis was trying to find ways to help leaders not fall into temptation and being leaders who are called and who understand what their calling is, and to not allow things to bring them down, such as pride and success. What is success in ministry? What does that look like?

What is that? Accountability was one big piece. Again, Sabbath, taking time to rest in the Lord. And just so all these things, I was trying to come together and then I wrote my dissertation on that. And the Lord was working in me at that moment saying, hey, you say you love me, but you have all these things that are not connected to me. So my life was kind of an example of how the Lord wanted to use this dissertation to not only help me, but help others who are going through the same struggle when it comes to ministry.

Because in America, we're overworked. And the mental stress that comes with being a minister of the gospel, but also a father and a husband, and being a local leader at the church, it's a lot. And so just finding ways to give good input and insight to people on how to deal with those impulses, whether it be negative or discouragement, and finding ways to have the body of Christ come and help support their leaders. This is kind of what the crux of the thesis was all about, my dissertation.

Yeah, definitely. And that's very important to just talk about just because sometimes so many people, because of not effectively being discipled, or not having a proper space or group of people to share with, to be transparent, to be vulnerable with, people have those challenges on their own, internally. And after a while, it began to weigh heavily on their heart, which then naturally it affects their mind and just their thoughts and the things that they do. So what would you say to, not just a ministry leader, but what would you say to a person who's listening right now, who's struggling, and they're just finding ways to linger through the world and not necessarily in the Spirit? What would you say to encourage them? I would say get real about where you're at and don't try to put up a front. If you know you have sins that are keeping you from being drawn closer to the Lord, repent, which means turn away from. And to be able to do that, you will need somebody to keep you accountable. None of us are meant to do life alone.

There's no time to play around. The enemy's real, his demons are real, and they will continue to attack you and tempt you. But the Lord has a plan. And in Scripture, it says it will give you a way of escape.

And maybe that way of escape for you is to first surrender and be obedient, but also to find somebody to walk alongside you. Amen. We hope you guys enjoyed this Words of Life episode, just where you got a chance to hear a little bit of the upbringing and the backstory of who Dr. Adlai Charles is and what drives him throughout ministry. Not only is it God's grace and his provisions, but God's charge to him to go and make disciples and to be a leader to those who he has the privilege of leading in this specific season and is like, also on top of just that hard work of whether it be his doctoral program, whether it be battling with lupus, whether it be just normal ebbs and flows of life to trust God and to put his hope in him. Let that be your charge day in and day out, despite what you go through, despite what temptations are being thrown at you.

Just know you have a God who will never leave you nor forsake you, and he will go through it with you. God bless. God bless. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support, and we'd love to hear from you. Call 1-800-229-9965 or visit salvationarmyradio.org to connect.

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