Charles Clark: There is literally so much that I want to talk to you about today. First of all, thank you. I start all of my interviews out with just saying, “Thank you.” I really appreciate you taking out the time, particularly since you’ve had such a wonderful weekend this past weekend with the choir’s live recording. I know that you are probably mighty tired from all of the festivities this weekend.
BB: It was a good weekend. A really good weekend…
CC: I heard all about it from people who gave really good reports, trust me. I wish I could have been there. I can’t wait for the project myself.
BB: It was beyond my expectations…
CC: Really? To be honest with you, knowing who you are, knowing the church and of course, knowing Minister Bynum, I didn’t expect anything less, trust me.
BB: I think I might have been naïve…
CC: Really?!
BB: Yeah, because music industry is not what I do. Yeah, I was grossly naïve. I have a profound respect for gifts and I’ve always had that respect for gifts in the Body of Christ. But after this weekend, it just solidified why there are diversities of gifts. Because you just saw people operating in their gifts; in all aspects, not just musically – the technology… Man, that’s why you’ve just got to respect everyone’s area of proficiency, I was naïve. Maybe that was just the reality of why it was beyond my expectation because I was just extremely naïve as to what it took to make that moment happen.
CC: Now let me focus on the ministry piece leading up to the live recording. How do you minister to young people who feel they no longer need to come to church or they don’t need a relationship with God?
BB: By letting them see my humanity, I think it pushes them into a posture where they can learn to appreciate a need for church. So I let them see my humanity.
CC: I heard someone say a few weeks ago that we’ve shown the mask, but we have yet to show the humanity…
BB: Absolutely. You figure this weekend was my anniversary. We had a caterer do our cookout at the church. Well, the caterer started coming to church because of the way that he saw my wife and I responding to people. They did some line dancing, the Cupid Shuffle, some other shuffle, and my wife was doing it. And he said he had never seen a church have that much fun and so that’s why he came to church.
CC: What do you think is the difference between The Mount in the beginning – when you were unsure of what the mission was – and The Mount now?
BB: It’s understanding the difference between mission and co-mission . . . Co-mission of every church is the same. That’s like saying McDonald’s, Burger King, Hardy’s… They all serve fast food but each one of them has been able to tool down what is their mission with what is their co-mission, [which is] how they serve fast food. So, prior to seven years ago, I was trying to do what I knew church did because I’m a PK (Preacher’s Kid). Then about seven years ago, God gave me my assignment. My assignment is Second Dimension Believers. So I still preach Jesus, teach Jesus… I still meet people’s spiritual needs, but now I determine who the people are that I meet spiritual needs for. If you go to McDonald’s and try to buy a Whopper, they don’t get mad and try to sell you a Big Mac. They tell you they don’t do [Whoppers], there’s a Burger King down the street…
CC: Exactly.
BB: Church wants to try to convince you to like their Big Mac. That’s why no one ever says there’s a restaurant on every corner but they’ll say there’s a church on every corner because we haven’t understood that just like there’s a restaurant on every corner because some people like Chinese food, some people like Mexican food, some people like Italian food… All three of those restaurants serve food; that’s their co-mission. But each of them has decided how they will prepare the food; that is their mission. So the reason there will be a church on every corner is because there are different missions. The co-mission stays the same, which is impacting people’s lives for Jesus Christ, making disciples. But the assignment is driven by what your mission is. So seven years ago, we figured out our mission is for people who are Second Dimension Believers. People assigned to me are no t usually new to the Kingdom; they have reached a place where they are serious about their relationship with Christ and there are questions that they are asking, they are looking for ministry to be very practical and pragmatic. It’s got to make sense to them. They don’t need to beat over the head about their giving… They have learned the basic principles of the faith and they are looking to go to another place in their faith. That’s our assignment.
CC: Wow… How do you think that Bishop Brown has changed – let’s say in the last seven years since the paradigm shift?
BB: My mind and my heart are open to God now. That’s the easiest way to define that. Where prior to that, my heart was open to God but my mind was closed. That’s Romans 12:1. He’s changed how I think. Because I am the son of a traditional Baptist pastor.
CC: Wow.
BB: So, if I look at church as I was trained to look at church, there is very little in our church that resembles the church that my father trained me in as a child. First of all, I’m a Bishop. He would not even have believed in the Apostolic Order of the Bishop. I don’t preach in a robe unless it’s one of the moments where ordinances of the church are going to be shared – baptism, communion, a wedding… So there is very little about how I process my faith now that is how my father processed his faith other than the foundations of our faith: who Jesus Christ is and the doctrines of the Christian church – the foundational doctrines. But as far as operations of the church, there is very little that resembles me seven years ago.
CC: What’s the vision for the next seven years?
BB: To become more intentional on church planting, definitely. And I think God’s given me a model for church planting that’s a hybrid of the modern-day Kingdom movement and the old-school Methodist movement. I think we throw people out there and we let them be autonomous and independent and I still think there should be a mandated relationship between the satellite, church or the planted church and its pastor and the home church, just like the Methodist church does. So definitely, it’s a tangible process of planting churches.
CC: Can you tell me more about the Center for Church Financial Management?
BB: It’s an assignment on my wife’s life. She’s a CPA by trade. She’s a CPA with a doctorate in Church Financial Management from Case Western Reserve University. What we believe is the next move in the order of church administration is preparation to do ministry and administration. So in other words, when you go to seminary, you are trained on homiletics, hermeneutics, how to preach and how to interpret the Scripture. But there is no relevant training in most seminaries on administration. Then you can go to a business school and get relevant training but there is no training based upon proclaiming the Gospel and things of that nature. So we believe now that the new leadership in the body of Christ if going to have to be able to marry together theological training and business training. CCFM is a laymen’s way of making that happen. It makes that available for the people who might not ever be able to go away to a major seminary in the local community. And a community extended beyond our locality but it allows for that kind of training to take place in a way that’s not as obtrusive to life as going to full-time school to get a degree.
CC: In what other areas do you think the 21st century church is lacking?
BB: Management. Management is the place where the modern-day Christian movement is lacking the most. We know how to do church; we don’t know how to manage the ministry. But the average Christian leader knows how to set up a worship moment; knows how to shape the homiletic moment; knows how to pull together the processes for effective worship, but we don’t know how to manage staff… We don’t know how to manage banking relationships. We don’t know how to manage the financial ins and outs of day-to-day operations in the Kingdom because that is not something that has been required. Now, that is, in fact, has already become a necessity.
CC: Do you think that sometimes as men in leadership we are just a bit too prideful to ask for help?
BB: Absolutely…it is definitely prideful because the Christian community thinks that is unlike the secular community. [Just] like McDonald’s and Wendy’s, in their purest forms, don’t think they’re competitors. Because Wendy’s makes their burgers fresh and McDonald’s makes theirs fast. That’s their niche. That’s their mission. So they don’t look at themselves as in competition because they’ve been able to focus their assignments so that they have two different audiences that the y are trying to go after or that they are in business to serve. The other day, I went to McDonald’s and someone from Burger King was coming in with a box of catsup because McDonald’s had run out of catsup. And they said when you all’s catsup comes in, give us our catsup back. Well, churches don’t do that and one of the reasons I think that is is because we have yet to be delivered from the spirit of competition. Churches have a problem with sibling rivalry. We are literally, directly if we don’t deal with it, in competition and that is not the will of God. If I’m doing my assignment, it doesn’t matter what the church down the street is doing if they are doing their assignment. And so, I think that’s why we don’t ask each other for help. And then there’s the reverse of that where there are some churches that don’t want to help another church because they feel like if I help empower that church, it will impact my church. But that’s impossible if we believe what we’re preaching. You know, sheep know their shepherd’s voice.
CC: That’s right...
BB: And number two, the steps of a man are ordered by God. So, if I understand God’s will for my life, no one else has that assignment in its purest form because I’m here in response to a dilemma on this earth. That’s why we’re born.
CC: When you walk into The Mount, it is the most comfortable, loving place you can walk into. And I would like to know how you do that because it starts from the leader…
BB: You just said it.
CC: It starts from the leader?
BB: absolutely. I don’t care what organization you’re a part of… The organism takes on the personality of the pastor or the leader, period. If you don’t make it church, it doesn’t matter. If you join the boys’ club, the culture is determined by the personality of the leader. Well, if you come to my house, you just described my house. You literally, just described my home.
CC: Well, I hope I get to come the next time I come to Chesapeake.
BB: Let’s make that happen. There’s always someone at my home. My children… My house was always the house where all of my children’s friends wanted to spend the night. The sleepover was always at my house and I think that that’s just the personality of my wife and I. We have always been people who have loved having people in our house. And when you come to my home, you don’t have to take your shoes off. I’m not talking about anyone who [does], that’s just the way our home flows. Direct relationship between pastor and people. Manifest that spirit in the atmosphere.
CC: Ultimately, when a layperson of a visitor comes to The Mount, what do you want them to come away with when they walk out the door?
BB: That’s a great question. I want them to walk away with… I look at each person that walks through our door as a Kingdom customer. So I want them to walk away with the love of Christ. The sermon may not have been that great. The music might have been okay. But at least they walk away with I was not a visitor, I was a guest. Because there is a distinct difference. In churches all the time, we welcome visitors. It’s one of the things you talked about earlier, what did I do to change that? I changed the language. So, we don’t call people in our church members; we call them partners. We don’t call people who come to our church who are not a part of our church visitors, we call them guests. Language is the most valuable gift we have. We say this all the time, out of your mouth proceedeth blessings and curses. What that’s saying is, how we shape our words is valuable. So if you intentionally change the language, you can intentionally change he atmosphere.
CC: Wow. Unbelievable. I would be remiss if I did not talk about The Mount Unity Choir and the recording they had last weekend. Most definitely. Everybody has a choir, but not everybody doesn’t have The Mount choir because everybody doesn’t have Earl Bynum. So, let’s talk about this first… What was the genesis to make this the year to have the live CD and DVD recording?
BB: Well, it was a seven-year vision. I literally threw the vision out to the church seven years ago and we tried and it just didn’t happen. It just was not the right season. Obviously, three years ago, Minister Earl came. When we first started interviewing and we talked about him coming, I threw that vision out and he said to me that it would probably be a three year process because of things that I had never heard of… that’s what I was alluding to earlier about respecting the gifting of others. Things like training voices; you know, I had never heard that before. We’re gonna bring a voice coach into the church and teach them how to breathe and teach them what their diaphragm is. Man, I’m thinking, I just wanted the church choir to get up on the stage and sing a song and we record it. But obviously because that’s a very anointing proficiency, there’s been a methodical, three year process moving towards what happened Friday evening.
CC: Wait – anointing proficiency? I love it. I’ve never heard that before.
BB: Every pastor has an area of anointing proficiency. I think the old word would be your dominant gift. I call it anointing proficiency. If we don’t learn how to embrace that, we will be trying to draw off of the anointing of someone and they’re not capable of releasing what we need. There’s a difference in the anointing proficiency of – you can name television ministers… I love Joel Osteen. His anointing proficiency is encouragement. And I love the fact that he’s authentic to that. He’s not gonna let you try to turn him into who he’s not. That’s his area. And that’s probably exactly what you say or feel when you come to our church. I think my area of anointing proficiency is authority and confidence. Tempered with encouragement…
CC: Most definitely.
BB: When Minister Earl came, he just set out on this basically very methodical way of getting us to where we ended up Friday evening. And so, it’s been an interesting journey. Unity Choir really is a by-product of before he came we had four choirs in the church. Finally, God me the revelation to just combine all the choirs into one and call it the Unity Choir. And that’s where the name came from but what happened Friday night was really a very methodical three-year process.
CC: Some leaders have a way of trying to rush the process and you did not. He said three years and you gave it to him. That’s not normal, Bishop. It’s more like, “I want what I want when I want it so let’s get it done.”
BB: That’s my wife, probably. Her background is strictly corporate America. So the way she thinks is: hire the best person you can and if you don’t have confidence to let them do what they’ve been hired to do, you’re not hiring the right person. So we are not, by far, a micromanaging church. I mean, I went to not one meeting for the recording. I did not see one contract; did not read one contract.
CC: Yes, sir. Will this project be under the umbrella of The Mount through a label? What is that process?
BB: It’s a relationship. It’s a conglomerate of Keys to the Kingdom and the church. Keys to the Kingdom is a Para church ministry, which is my 501(c) 3 and then the 501(c) 3 of Mount Lebanon Baptist Church. So it’s a relational piece between both of them.
CC: That’s wonderful. Is there anything that you have not accomplished personally that is still in the back of your mind just burning?
BB: Yes. I don’t know the proper word for it. A group home is not the right word, but a group home is, I think, the next piece. Friday night definitely made a seven-year piece move a major step forward, which was the CD. But there’s another assignment that God has given my wife and I to do a group home. And what would be so different about it is that it’s not for troubled youth. It’s for youth with troubled parents. So, we’re not trying to get the child who’s having problems, we’re trying to get the child who has potential but has parents that have problems. And we’ve got the conceptual stuff done now, so we’ve started to pursue that tangibly. So that would be the next big dream, if you will. At this point, in terms of building buildings, that doesn’t necessarily excite me in this season. Just to be able to build another church… Our church is large enough. If we run out of space now, it’s time for us to take somebody and send them across town and start a new church.
CC: I believe I’m done. I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and hope I get the chance to talk to you again real soon. Thank you so much, Bishop. I really appreciate it, sir.
BB: It’s been a pleasure. I have enjoyed it as well. You have forced me to think, so thank you.
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