"Many are called, but few are chosen," certainly personifies this humble vessel of God. The powerful ministry gift that rests on his life is evident whenever you’re in a worship experience with him. Pastor Ronald L. Godbee, Sr. has a passion for praise and worship with a ministry style that saturates the soul. As the Campus Pastor of The River Church in Durham, North Carolina, Pastor Ronald L. Godbee, Sr. is challenging the men and women of God to begin building lives, loyalty, and a legacy. It is under the direction of the Holy Spirit that Pastor Godbee will create an atmosphere of Christ-centered worship where the presence of God will manifest throughout God’s Kingdom. His operation in the five-fold ministry gifts is causing lives to be radically changed, transformed and renewed.

Charles Clark: I always start my interviews with saying thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time out. Thank you so much.

Ronald Godbee: First and foremost thank you to you for taking the time to be such a faithful servant to our community. And I’m honored to be a part of this service.

CC: Well, thank you. This has become my opening question to all of the individuals who I have the opportunity to interview… Who is Ronald Godbee?

RG: Ronald Godbee is a man of God. I’m a worshipper. A husband, one wife… Father of three beautiful children... I believe the sum total of who I am is that I’m a servant. And I pray that’s what would be etched in the annuls of time when my journey is done. [T]hat I’ve committed myself to serving the people of God and honoring God through my life of service.

CC: What is your definition of servant?

RG: Servant is being mindful of the people of God the way that God is… To really communicate His heart and mind in the Earth by being His hands, by being His voice, being His legs… By manifesting Him in the Earth. And I think that’s the mandate of the Kingdom – is that as children of the King, we operate as He operated. [W]e do as He did and so that is my plan. Basically, to walk as He walked; talk as He talked; to love as He loved and that’s an unconditional thing. I think that’s the sum total of what a true servant of His really is.

CC: And then on top of that – because I hear so many definitions of the word – what is your definition of a worshipper?

RG: A worshipper is being intimately engaged again with God to understand His thoughts and His ways… To commit yourself to be in a place to be impregnated by His word and His will. Worship, within itself, is really intimacy. And I think that is what we’re called into – being intimate with God. He actually does have relationship and fellowship with us and it’s through worship that we hear His voice we receive His touch that we’re impregnated with His purpose. And that is then our responsibility to bring it forth and manifest into the Earth. So it’s an opportunity to be intimately engaged with God.

CC: What [has] the journey been like for you to become Ronald Godbe – right now, at this very moment?

RG: It is an immensely detailed journey. [It is] one that has been defined with many hardships [and] with many struggles but it is in the moment of opposition that we really find our purpose; so I thank God for the friction of going against the grain and having things go against me to shape me and mold me the way that they have. And so it has been one cultivated with many different challenges… Being reared in a home with a dad who had had four heart attacks, three open-heart surgeries and two strokes… A mom who had multiple sclerosis… My brother and I were reared in very adverse circumstances but, praise God, my mom and dad put the Word in the midst of us and we saw faith in action through their lives of sacrifice and struggle. It was through seeing that that it developed us to have a walk with God. My brother is now the Chief of Police – one of the youngest chiefs of police in the United States of America… African American male at 43 years old is the Chief of Police in the city of Detroit… And myself, having gone through many challenges and struggles, here I am today Pastor of the River Church in Durham, North Carolina.

CC: Speaking of the River Church, what was the Call like…? How did you get the Call to be the Pastor of the River Church in North Carolina?

RG: Through service… I would love to say that it’s my preaching prowess. I’d love to say that it was my theological acumen but the truth of the matter is that it was just because I was a servant. Again, yielding myself to be the hand of God, the legs of God, the feet of God, the voice of God and through service of man and woman of God, gained an audience and the attention of them both; which precipitated an opportunity for me to be selected as the new Campus Pastor of the River Church. It was strictly through service.

CC: Strictly through service… On your part, was there any apprehension about taking on that post? You know, people really get in tuned with their leader - their pastor and so was there any apprehension about you becoming the Campus Pastor for the River Church?

RG: Well, I would like to say that there was, but in all honesty, there wasn’t. I knew the heartbeat of the ministry. I knew the heart of the men and women of God. They are worshippers. They are committed to serving the people of God and so I knew that our visions were identical and that our ministry styles were so compatible. [A]s long as the people had a heart to receive then I knew they would be a great fit for the ministry. And it’s proven to be so. Anytime you have a heart of love and anytime you have a concern and compassion for the people, then I think it translates into life of the people. And so, um, to say that there was apprehension, I’m really gonna have to say that there wasn’t any. It was something that we embraced really with a spirit of expectation because I knew that God would spring forth with a great result of faithfulness. It was actually the harvest of seeds sown… knowing that God would reward us for our labors and reward us for our diligence.

CC: What type of leader do you believe that you are? Can you define your leadership style?

RG: Yeah, I actually can. It’s one that believes in empowering the people and not enslaving the few. God has [called] to raise up leaders to deposit and impart in them wisdom and knowledge to give them the tools and resources to elevate themselves and grow them into the full measure and stature of Jesus Christ. I live by the mandate of Ephesians 4, which is that we are the culmination of the thought and the reason for five facets of God being given to us. [T]hese elevations – gifts called the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher – were given to us to grow us into the full measure and stature of Jesus Christ. And so, again, that’s my mandate: to preach in the Kingdom and to raise the Kingdom consciousness in the people of God to let them know in every area of their lives, in some light, they are leaders or developing to be such. I really don’t believe those gifts are to be at work in the local assembly, but those gifts are to be at work in the world. And so, as a leader, my mandate is to raise up the consciousness of the people of God to have a Kingdom assignment; or a Kingdom mandate to go into all the world; or to lead from whatever areas or aspect God has chosen them to lead in. So, I’m very strong – I’m very committed to the cause of Christ and dedicated to developing the people of God to manifest the will of God in the world.

CC: Do you think that sometimes leaders get so bogged down in the ministries of the Church – what happens in those four walls – [that they are] not going out to the highways and hedges, per se?

RG: Oh, absolutely, and that produces religion. I believe that that is the direct antithesis of what God would have us do. The mandate was to go into the world. And so, we are to be in the marketplace. And we are to extend ministry because a Kingdom conscious is territorial. And so, it cannot be consumed with conquering a corner; but we have to have a global perspective. So long, I think, that we’ve been hampered – that we’ve been paralyzed – by trying to conquer a corner, but if we are going to really operate in what God has called us to operate in then we have to relieve ourselves from the constraints and the small places and the limited places, conquering a corner. We’ve got to expand ourselves to have a global mind.

CC: Yes, sir. Do you think that in the 21st century Church, we have failed to really educate our lay members?

RG: Well, I would hate to blanketly generalize that – put that across the board. I would like to believe that we have done a great job in educating the people of God. Again, I think the thing that needs to be analyzed is what are we educating them to do?

CC: Yes…

RG: I think that there needs to be a shift in the paradigm as to what it is we’ve teaching the people of God to do. I do think that there needs to be a greater emphasis on lifestyle. I do think that we have to go back to equipping the people with the understanding and the ideology that we can live holy and that we can live upright and live for the Lord. If we educate them properly with a spiritual component, rather than the many other facets that we sought to educate them in, then I think that if we get back to primary focal point of what should be, then I think that we might change our perspective of what we’re educating the people of God in. We’ve taught them very well how to come up in their finances; how to come up in their families; how to come up in so many areas of their lives… We now have probably more business owners in the Christian community than ever. We have mastered the moment as far as finances and all of these other different areas. But I think that we’ve got to get back to making the main thing, the main thing… And that is that we are peculiar people. We are the chosen generation and the world priesthood. And we’re peculiar. Our peculiarity is that we can live a holy life. So we need to bring the people of God back to an educated understanding that they can live with God as Commissioner and commanding them to live in His word.

CC: Yes, sir. Why do you feel that some leaders – not [you], because if you say “Pastor Godbee”, they’re gonna say the first thing is he’s gonna tell you the truth and he’s going to give you the Word. But why is it that we see that there are some topics or certain issues that we, in the Church, do not want to tackle?

RG: Well, again, we seek to do what we deem to be successful and these things have been topics that are counterproductive to what we have labeled to be success. Those are hot-button issues and to pick a church that has become the paradigm for 21st century ministry has begun to amplify the fact, I guess, that those are not ways to grow your ministry. But I just believe that the lifting of Christ and His ability to draw is still as true today as it was thousands of years ago. We have to go back to the understanding that if He’s lifted up, then He will draw and that there’s still a standard. We must espouse the truths of the Word of God. We cannot speak a truth, but we have to speak the truth. And that causes us to preach the whole content of the Bible, and not just the things that we select to grow our ministry. Again, I’m all for growing church. I believe that a healthy church should be a growing church; but, again, we have to be mindful that we’re not swelling and that we are growing a healthy ministry. And I think that that takes the total counsel of God, the total wisdom of God. If we are tackling all of the issues, then it brings about a balanced church. That’s one of the elements, one of the gifts, of the Holy Spirit – is balance… I don’t believe in beating people into a relationship with God; but I do believe in illustrating and amplifying the points that take us into our proper place with God. So we need to understand that it’s balance that makes a healthy ministry, so we have to tackle the hard, hot-button issues and we have to deal with the things that are relevant to today’s generation and things that plague our society… and things that confront our youth… They are hard topics. But if we are going to be effective men of God, and not just gather people – but impact people, then we’ve got to make those hard choices and preach those hard topics.

CC: Wow… Let’s say someone – a young man – comes to you at the church where you pastor and they say that they’ve had a call on their life to become a minister, to become a pastor… What are the five things you would say to them, once they tell you that?

RG: The first thing that I would do is get them involved in community service, if they are not already involved in community service. And the one thing that I tell young preachers is that if you’ve got to tell me that you’ve been called to preach, then we have a problem already. I should have first seen that you’re actively doing something that involves you and causes you to be engaged in the issues that are relevant in your community. If you’re not doing that, then that tells me that you just want a platform to preach from; you’re really not concerned about impacting people’s lives. Again, this is a calling to impact the lives of God’s people and so our primary focal point should not be preaching from a pulpit. But it should be to engage the process of this thing that we call life. So, the first thing that I would have to see is that you’re involved in your community… that in some way you have taken an interest and you have identified what particular place that you believe God has given you purpose to impact society. And if we don’t see that, then I don’t see a calling because [a] calling should represent in impacting and empowering. I think that’s the problem with the Church. We have too many young preachers who look at the celebrities and what they believe [is] the “success” of preaching, which makes them declare that there’s a calling. I think that if you’re truly called, then you don’t have to reveal that to anybody; it reveals itself through your activity and what it is that you’re doing. Now, of course we want to sanction it properly and we want to order it and construct it in a way that is conducive to the Word of God and the plan of God, but first and foremost, we’ve got to see that there’s some activity being done prior to that calling. And then, I think that’s the problem… We have too many people identifying themselves to the shepherds, when it is the shepherds that God has given the assignment to watch for the souls of the sheep. And so, if that’s my assignment, then I should identify you; you should never have to identify yourself. So, if I see your soul, I should see your calling. I think that’s what happens: we don’t trust the shepherds to see our souls and we don’t trust Him to assign us after having assessed us and after having spiritually discerned us. I think as shepherds, we are too quick to take people based off of what they say rather than what we see. And so for me, as a shepherd, I have to spiritually discern that. I don’t necessarily take what people say, but I take what I spiritually see and I discern that. And I teach that people of God if you trust one thing, then the only thing that you need to trust is that I can see something that nobody else can… and that’s your soul. So when the people of God submit and commit themselves to a ministry, it should not be done because the choir’s great or the preaching is good and because the extracurricular activities are present. But it should be because this man or this woman sees my soul and when I submit to that, then I’ll trust what they see and I will allow them to put me where I’m best suited and where I’m best able and best equipped for ministry. You’ve heard it… A lot of people come to you and they want to be in the choir. Just because you want to be there doesn’t mean that you’re called to be there. And even if you have the gifting to be there, it doesn’t mean that you’re anointed to be there and I think that’s why we have so many problems in the Body of Christ because we have not properly allowed the shepherd to position us. We positioned ourselves. I know that doesn’t exactly answer your question with five things…

CC: No, you put the nail in the coffin for that one. Yes, sir! Wow! Of all the things that you do, you still have time to co-host a radio show. Now, do you still do the radio show by yourself, The Flow?

RG: Since I’ve transitioned to North Carolina, I’ve had to shut down my television. I’ve had to shut down my radio. Again, it was a commitment to hearing God.

CC: Yes, sir.

RG: There was so much that God had placed in my life and allowed me to accomplish that I now had to literally transition out of. So, this became my opportunity to again hear God when others thought I was really crazy because God had really allowed me to accomplish a lot where I was. And in a lot of people thought that in many ways I was walking away from everything that I had worked for to come and work in another man’s field. But again, as a servant, I understand the principle of sowing into another man’s field and to secure the success of another. And when you maintain the work of another individual, then it secures your future and it secures your lineage and it perpetuates your legacy. I think that’s another thing that we’re not mindful of in the Body of Christ now – and that’s lineage and legacy. I’m so mindful now of not just what I’m doing, but I’m mindful of what I’m leaving. I have to secure my children’s future. I have to secure their destiny. And I have to ensure that I’m leaving a legacy to my lineage. I have to assure now that [these are] the seeds that I am sowing on behalf of them. And so this choice, I tell people, was really not about me. I heard this move from God for my family. I was fine. I was well. I was well-covered. I was well-kept. I was well qualified. I was well angled. I was doing everything Ronald Godbee needed to do. This was about my children. This move was about my wife. I knew this move would unlock gifts in them and it would tap into ministry that was in them that I knew could not be tapped into where I was. And so, I had to give up a lot and I had to walk away from a lot but it was worth it because of the investment and the deposit I knew He would make into my wife and children.

CC: Do you think sometimes we stay too long in a certain situation because it is that comfortable?

RG: Oh, absolutely…

CC: You could have easily stayed in Detroit at the Inner Court Christian Center but you knew that this was God saying it was time for you to move. Very rarely do I hear someone of your stature say I’m going to push my family – put my family first. Well, always God is first, but this is something that would be beneficial for my children and my wife. I don’t hear that a lot.

RG: Well, you know, I’ve learned through the process and through my journey that loving God is loving your family.

CC: Yes, sir.

RG: The Bible says what prophet a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? That word there is the sentient, seated part of me: my will, my intellect and my emotions. We don’t really understand the totality of that. So what drives my will, my intellect and my emotions? It is my family. And so, the thing that gives me a soul… The thing that makes my soul evident is my family. So really, what the text is saying is what prophet a man to gain the whole world and lose his family? And so, our focal point should be our family. I think in ministry, we do so much that we lose our family when the actual impetus of ministry is to gain the family, is to strengthen your family. [I]f the enemy attacks your family, he attacks the function and framework of everything that the Kingdom represents. So, as leaders, we have to be mindful to secure our families, to protect our families and to focus on our families because that is the model. And I think that we’ve missed it drastically and that’s why the enemy is running so rampant through the Body of Christ. It is because as leaders, we haven’t understood the significance of ministering to our families. Our connection to God is only as much as our connection to our families. Our worship towards God is only as much as we’re able to reflect that in our family. Our praise towards God is only reflected in that which we offer to our family. So again, we love Him by loving them. If we miss an opportunity to support them and minister to them, then I think that we’ve done the Gospel and this assignment in ministry a great disservice.

CC: Wow… What one lesson did you learn from your parents that you pass on to your children?

RG: To believe in God through anything… I know that sounds so simplistic but it’s the greatest lesson that my mom and dad taught us. I spent a great deal of time running from God, hating God and not wanting anything to do with God because I saw Dad, who loved God – in my eyesight – being failed by this God that he loved, this God that he preached about, this God that he talked about. Because if God loved you like that, why do you have the health challenges that you have? And so, in my immaturity, I didn’t understand God so I didn’t want anything to do with this God that my mom and dad displayed 24/7 because I thought that if He loved you back, you shouldn’t be going through the things that you’re going through. My mom and dad showed us through every heart attack, through every time that they had struggles, challenges and trials, that they still trusted in God. That is the foundation of everything that I operate from. Nothing shakes me. Nothing moves me because I saw Mom and Dad move through the impossible, believing and trusting in God. And they never spoke ill of Him. Never felt like God was against them… But they forever lived their lives for Him… And now, me and my brother [have] lived through the greatest adversities knowing that if God be for us, who in the world could be against us. So that’s what they instilled in us, what they etched in us… That’s what I pray that I etch in my children.

CC: What have you learned from your children?

RG: I’ve learned how to love without any expectation… How to love beyond any problems, proclivities, any insufficiencies, any inadequacies… I’ve learned pure love. My children genuinely love their dad. And I haven’t always been there for them. I haven’t always been the man that I am now. I haven’t always been the worshipper, the man of God that I am now. But my children adore me. My children love me and they love me unconditionally. And so, they have loved me into a place of integrity. They’ve loved me into a place of accountability. They’ve loved me into a place of character and credibility and that’s strictly the pureness of a child’s love. That 15 year-old, that 14 year-old and that 9 year-old loved their dad into the man of God that he is right now.

CC: Sir, I could talk to you for hours, but I will not. I really appreciate you talking with me today. I really do, sir.

RG: It was my pleasure, Charles.