BraveMen S4E113: Jamaal Bernard Interview

I first met Jamal Bernard at his father's church, Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, New York. It had been an old grocery store that he had redone and restored. Dr. A. Bernard was building a great church and my father, Dr. Ed Cole, became Dr. Bernard's mentor. And they're on Lyndon Avenue in Brooklyn, which if you're from that area at all, you know that street. And what used to be a grocery store, he had remade into a beautiful church. And people lined up around the corner, I'll never forget watching that and seeing that just astounded by it from where I lived and came from. But people would line up service after service after service. And Christian Cultural Center New York became a very significant church. They then moved to a larger property and Jamal went to school and grew up in the church. And now is the senior pastor of the Christian Cultural Center in Long Island and the COO of Christian Cultural Center New York, which also includes other campuses and churches they're building across the country. Jamal is a remarkable man. He's got five children and married to Rita. But he's gone through a lot of things. Dr. Bernard's children had a number of children and Dr. Bernard's other two other sons have passed away. And I asked Jamal, how do you get through that? How do you get through the chaos of that? How do you walk through in Brooklyn, New York, building a church like they get almost a thousand volunteer staff that you oversee? How do you do that? How do you walk through that? How do you not lose your brain, racing five kids, shepherding a church, being in the crosshairs of culture because you're one of the largest churches in the entire Eastern United States? How do you do all that, Jamal? How do you grow up as a son of a well-known man and maintain your own identity? It's a remarkable conversation. I want to remind you that all of our books, Courage, Real Man, Maximized Manhood, and others are all on audiobook now. C-M-N dot men, you go to our website, you can find where those are. C-M-N dot men. I'll give you all the information and details. But the audiobooks, audible.com, the places you get audiobooks, all of those books, we've got eight books now, plus another five in Spanish. So you can listen to this as you drive to and from work after you listen to the podcast. But I'm thrilled you're here with us today on Brave Men and I'm really excited for you to listen into the conversation I had with Jamal Bernard, C-O-O, Christian Cultural Center in New York. Thanks for being with us today on Brave Men. It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, Wisdom and Courage for the Journey. Starting with Jamal Bernard, Christian Cultural Center, Chief Operations Officer, and I think I've known you since you were in your teens. Actually, Walker A.R. Bernard and his wife founded the church years ago. Was it founded on Lyndon Avenue? Is that? No, it was actually founded in a house with a couple of individuals and he ended up going from Grand to Manhattan Avenue and then from Manhattan Avenue to Lyndon Boulevard. Okay, Lyndon Boulevard in Brooklyn. Yes, yes, I was in my teens maybe younger, maybe younger than that. Yeah, I remember going to Lyndon Boulevard to the church there with my dad and I remember your dad telling the story that he used to, it was a grocery store. Yes, it had been a grocery store and he said, you know, the place that I used to shop with became the place that became my church. The irony, the way God works, right? Yeah, it's amazing. What is it? What is that like? And how did you deal with being this, if you will, the object of attention because your dad's a pastor of a church said, yes, grew like crazy. People were lined up around the building to get in. Yes, yeah. But you became, you became like the young, okay, here's, there's Jamal. Yes, everybody's looking at you. How do you deal with that? How do you grow up in that? Well, I think two things happen. Two major things happen. One, my dad, he, he priest his message. And the message, I don't remember the full title of the message, but a disc of the message was leave my kids alone. And that actually freed us. Yes, he said, he said that stop placing the burden of my calling on my kids. And that freed us. And then the second big moment was actually your father entering into my father's life. And he helped me shape and redefine what manhood looked like from a not just a worldly perspective, but from a biblical perspective. And the relationship dynamics changed. And that really freed us to find Christ on our own. I feel the necessity to follow my father's footsteps, but he, with, with those two, my mental changes in his life, it put us on a path because he made us excited about knowing this Christ. Wow. Because then you could, you could join the adventure on your own. Yes. And if you will be pushed along. Yeah. So it became a us thing. I said, you need to follow because I said so. I said, hey, let's do this together. And it became a corporate journey within the brothers and my father. Wow. Now, Jamal, you've got, you and your wife read up in very two decades. You've got five children. How did that impact your parenting? Well, I went through it with my father. Yeah. I think it impacted it a lot. It was very impactful because it helped me create a model on parenting. And the nice thing about it was that the shift happened at a place where I was mature enough to understand what was happening. And I was able to implement that in my own life. So the principle that he said was all ministry starts at home. And, you know, and this is something your father, right? Your father is still in my father's name. And that was something that really stuck to me to this day. So I said, okay, I need to, what does ministry look like for my house? Wow. And pushing that through. And this is a beach child. I think, I think too often as ministers full time people in the ministry because we're all ministers, but full time pastors and leaders. We have a tendency to get real and just like you would in any kind of business, you can get real involved in self identified into business. Yeah. Yet that your most important ministry is your ministry at home. Yes, because the reality is especially my father had it easy because it was all sons. Right. I have three daughters. So the value factor. That had it easy because it was boys. Yes. It's easy to me. But, but the value factors, right? So, so think about it. You know, for us, we get hurt. Get up and script it off. You're a man. Right. For my daughter is like, daddy, I need you, you know, and I think I'm up comfort them. And so the value factor, right, right, deeper. And the daughter compared to the son. Okay. I see that. I see that. Right. So, so, so if my father says no to us, we can handle it. Right. Yeah. As you know, we understand his work as ministry. This is what men supposed to do, right? Yeah. But for my, for my daughter, every time I said no to her, and yes, it's something else. I was saying I valued what I was saying yes to more than what I said no to. So, yeah, and once as much more personal. Yes, much more personal. Yeah, three, three daughters, man. How old? How old's your oldest? 21. 21, man. Yes. Dude, can you believe that? I know. I know. I know. Well, when we saw each other in Texas, and I was telling you all the growth of the family, I'm like, man, this was us having conversations. Yeah. Years ago, about family was, was, was happening. So that's my dad and your dad talking about, you know, so AR. What, what, how many kids you have? And, you know, I saw him reminiscing on the conversations and. And, and your father said, wow, time is flowing so fast. Now, it does, well, it flies fast and retrospective. It moves along pretty quickly day to day, but. You know, you know, you know, you know, your father started Christian cultural center there and. In New York, and you're the senior pastor of the Long Island campus, you're the COO. Of the church, the whole ministry, and you guys are expanding to other places. I know COVID has hit that. I'm going to talk a bit. In fact, I'm going to talk about it in a minute, because you were really vulnerable. I watched you Jamal on a. A broadcast that you did talking about through Orlando experience. And it was really very powerful, but, but I want to get into this right when I'm talking with Jamal Bernard, who's the. Christian cultural center in Brooklyn, New York chief operations officer married five children and senior pastor Christian cultural center in Long Island, your father. His wife started the whole ministry years ago. And he had he had all boys, but you've lost actually you've had two of those sons go to heaven within them. Just the last few years. And we just how do you handle that grief as a family. And what did you see in your father's handling of it that has helped shape you as a man. I think one of the biggest things that my father did was he showed it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to as a man to show your brokenness. As a man, it's okay, you know, to have to withdraw, you know, because you're dealing with anger, right. And but come back and resolve it and come back to be the, the show does that we can all stand on. As a family, we the biggest thing we identified is that each but one of us were going to deal with it differently. There's no cookie cutter. There's no cookie cutter way of dealing with grief. Yeah, you guys gave each permission and both both your brothers left it different times in different ways. Yes, brother Alfonso was a sudden he literally suffocated. Yeah, I was a bad ass attack while he was eating. Yeah. And so it was sudden. Yes. Yep. So it was a shock and awe that took a lot of a lot of time. Yeah. Yeah, it hurt. It was to wrestle with that one was, you know, wow, okay, God. My question was why why him, right? Yeah. I think he was a master chef. He had. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And think about it, Paul, right? To be transparent of on a book. Yeah, I think we all have a list of who could have went before that one loved one, right? So I'm like, God, could it take this person for that person? And that's. Dude, we don't even want to go there because all of us have that thing about. That guy's still alive. Are you kidding? Yes, right? Yes. So many other people that can still be alive. Yes, you know, I got. Yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah, so the question is why, you know, why the big why was, you know, the wrestler with God. Yeah. Well, wrestling with God is what turned Jacob to Israel. Yes. Yep. Yeah. So it's so in other words, it's not a wrong thing, Pastor Jamal. No, he gives a specific statement very rarely that he gives, you know, specifics to this point where he's just come let us reason to go. Right. So sort of question is what does reasoning look like? And I think that, you know, the panel where we are emotionally. Yeah. So to determine what the reason looks like. But one of the things I do know is that we have to maintain respect with our reasoning. Right. And reference without reason. Yeah, what does that mean? Well, because we can ask God questions, right? So too often in old churches don't question God. Oh, yeah. And now we're at a place where. We don't want to get too familiar with requesting God and the dictionary disrespect for ways like why why you do that God? But you know, but I think it's good to wrestle and and and go through the process of reasoning because. How often do we hit doubt? Right. We don't talk about doubt in the church, but all of us have faced doubt in our lives. Yeah. Faced out and in the validity of the text, the validity of this God, especially when we feel like he's so far. You know, we we face doubt when we we we looking at just a hear a boy said, well, I just need to hear something. I just want, you know, just say something, say something. And I think that's where I was when fans have died. I was like, can I say something why? And we him and I we wrestled and we had this conversation. And it just says he just says, I'm God. Things happen out of your privy. And what happened and with your finite mind, you do not have the ability to comprehend everything I'm doing when I'm doing it, how I'm doing it. But just be comfortable with that. I am in control. And I am God. So you you minister a lot in that. So you have both brothers leave. Like I said, different ways in you guys. I love the fact you gave each other permission to grieve. The way you felt the grief. Yeah. Yeah. You said if that's how you're going to grieve, we're going to stand if your grief is silent. If your grief is crying, if your grief is frustration, we're going to handle it. We're going to walk with you on that. Because it's really easy to look at somebody else and say, man, why aren't you on the ground like me? Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. And my mother father went to that because my mother could not was unable to fully understand the way my father grieved. Because we never dealt with something at this level. Right. So that depth of grief is new. And my mother, you know, the teacher was there where she felt that my father should agree a certain way. And she came back and you know, had a party. I said, look, if that's how you're going to grieve, we're going to do this together. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you minister because in that leads me to something else and you do a lot of ministry on this talking with Jamal Bernard pastor Jamal Bernard Christian cultural center of Brooklyn and senior pastor of Christian cultural center in Long Island. And thanks for hanging out with me you and I actually just. And last summer, where we sat and talked for a few hours and it, you know, your depth of of pastoring and the understanding of scripture and everything else is really struck me plus of course with our dads and then each other for years and. So fast name the whole dynamics on the whole thing but you so now your ministry and you minister a lot on fear. You know, looking back at some of the things you've written even recently. And you, and you talk to people a lot about fear and fear. Is that something you wrestled with yourself and then give me some, give me some points, give me some takeaways that I can walk with. It's funny because I haven't really spoken to anybody about what I'm about to share. And after the funds were died and this was back in 2015, I looked at what his kids went to them and not have his father and I went through this this place of fear of not being there for my kids. I wasn't afraid of dying. I just was afraid of not being there for my kids to a point where I used to get you know and then never hitting before flying was never a problem. Even when I started flying and a little turbulence, you know that that that would creep up and I had to realize I had to take control of it. And I understand certain things that as a Texas has perfect love cast on all fear. Right. And the question is what does that really mean? How do you know? We can say that and it becomes like a little path formula. And I believe that when we look at the way God operates that if if you believe he is love, then that means the framework on how he operates is based on love. So everything that he allows us to go through or puts us through is based on love. And when I look at the love of God, I started realizing that there's no need to be afraid. Because ultimately, I have put my kids hands in his life. We're just stewards over the life of our kids. We're not possesses of it like your father should say. And I said, okay, Lord, these are your kids. You know, and I got to stay focused on my relationship with you and my relationship with how they end up as an old flow of my relationship with you. And it just started really breaking those chains of fear that I used to rush into my life. I started instances. Yeah, because fear, you know, talk about this. You know, we get we can get really anxious. Yeah. My question is, does anxiety come from fear? Does fear come from anxiety? How does that relate? Because I think in the world in which we're living right now in the 24 hour news cycles. And everything it hits us. I think we can get super anxious. I think it's cyclical, right? I think from the from the most part, it's cyclical where anxiety produces fear, fear produces anxiety. And it just goes back and forth. Circle, right? It's a circle. And until you deal with, you know, the, I think the fear portion, it becomes a birthplace of anxiety. And that's some of the stuff that I've spoken to a lot of our counselors about, right? Because they can deal with the fear. They can deal with anxiety, right? Because I think fear is a stronger emotion of the two. And that's the ruling emotion when it comes to your interaction with life. Yeah. We got that. I'll keep that in. Thank you. Hey, so anxiety, I, you know, when we talk about that, I feel like while 68% of our high school students in America are dealing with a level of anxiety and stress. Yes. Yeah. They said 70% of generation Z shows stress indicators when they left from their phone for long period of time. And that's just dealt with their phone. That's not dealt with regular life. Just life. So because I read something the other day. And I'm sure it was written by, you know, because most of the news, when we listen to the news, a lot of it, as you know, being right there in the middle of Manhattan and, and being a very aware person and well read. You know, a lot of the news is written by 30 year old guys who men and women who just came out of university, because that's where you spread. Right? So those of the guy used to be called rip and read because they would, they would pull the, the, the stuff off the teletype and then rewrite it and give it to the newscaster. And it's kind of where you start in that whole world of journalism. But so I read a headline the other day and I thought, man, this was written by 30 year old without perspective. And America is more divided than it's ever been in its history. And I thought, do you not remember the Civil War? Obviously your parents didn't tell you about the 60s and Vietnam and all that kind of thing. And I feel like sometimes it becomes self-fulfilling prophecies, sort of like, man, something bad's going to happen and then something happens and go see, I told you. Yeah. You know, what do you, what is, where's your, what's your take? As a faith leader and a dad on diversity in our nation today? What do you think we had? Is it better verse? Well, so this is someone, someone of a load of question, because follow me, we think about it, right? One, what does diversity look like, right, for the nation? That's one question. The second question you have to ask is what does diversity look like for the church? Right. So you're asking for the diversity of the nation, the diversity of the church. I think as a nation, we are more diverse. We look at the landscape of the urban living environments. You have your pockets, right? You have your pockets. But those pockets, a lot of those pockets can be, you know, chucked up to the migration of individuals coming out of the country, right? So just like you had the Italians that came over to America, they all went where all the Italians were, because I didn't know the language fully. I mean, you know, it might, in order to assimilate, it's American culture, I tended to go where the individuals live that I was more familiar with, that helped me with the assimilation process, right? So you got your pockets. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Right. And then you look at the church and you say, okay, well, the church needs to be more diverse. But we understand that ministry is contextual, right? So if my church is in, give me the widest rural neighborhood in America, right? And I'm doing church. I'm doing good. I can't expect, right? For people of color, where the people of color population might be 0.001 for my church to be diverse. And within the, the last key of the church, because this is where my church, this is where I'm doing church. Well, I'm a, I'm a bus people of color and in order for my church to be diverse, right? We try, we try, right? But it doesn't work. Because then you violate, oh, well, you're trying to hand out to the people of color. No, we can have our own church. Right. So, so, right. I think when we expect a level of diversity, we also have to say, where is this church really doing ministry, right? Right. But I do think that we can have a discussion of diversity more from the pulpit. But it's going to be very difficult to say, okay, we want all churches to be diverse, where all churches don't sit in a diverse environment. Yeah, that's so good. You know, I think, and that really is the key to me is, I think we're moving into an era of the church, Pastor Jamal, where, where we need to minister to our neighborhoods. Yes, we, we got so outward focused and missional and there's nothing wrong with that that we started looking at other places and frankly, you know, you can fly in, do a event. No one in, let's say Honduras. And, and blow it up and do fantastic and come back with photos. Right. It was good. Like, wow, that's amazing. But I'm telling you, in fact, I'll tell you one, I remember the, there was a revival years ago called the Brownsville Revival. It was the miracle of Pensacola and it was a big outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And I remember going down there because my company did that we did all the videos and national specials on it. There's a number of a couple of decades ago. I remember going down there and there were people lining up to get in. It was a, it was services every day. Big deal. And I, I remember driving around the neighborhood. I said, you know, and we went and asked some of the people because we were doing a documentary, asked some of the people in neighborhood, you know what's going on over there? No, I have no idea what's going on over there, but they sure have messed up all of our traffic when I try to get home. Wow. There's a person living two blocks away who's actually economically devastated. And I thought, what if everybody who's in line lining up for this event just brought a bag of groceries. We load them all up in a couple of bands or trucks and take them to the neighborhood. Wow. In other words, this, what happened, what was happening there was going around the world and people were talking about it. It was on videos and all this stuff. But they didn't. Now they did eventually there was some pastoral changes and whatever and they ended up very, very involved in the neighborhood. But they weren't impacting their neighborhood. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. It does. It does. It's like when when Hurricane Sandy hit New York. We have our membership bases all over the five girls. Right. And we said, okay, let's respond to our members and we said bags away. Well, they said if we just respond to our members, let's empower the local church to respond to his community. Wow. So what we did was we went with five passes and if rock waves and, you know, the certain areas that really got hit hard. And we got, we brought them generators. Wow. And we brought them food to stop the refrigerators. Okay, we need you to respond to the community. We're going to send some of our members here so that you can help them. Because you know, this is this is your community, this is what you need to do. And it wasn't about empowering, you know, because we're a big church. We can just, you know, we can go into any community to do what we need to do. But we said, let's empower the local church because ultimately the success of any ministry is based on how relevant it is to this community. Oh, man. Yeah, it's not about, yeah, you know, it's. When you've been teaching Christmas network is it's not about how many people you put in your seats. It's about how many people you put into the streets. Yes, I like that. That's good. About how many, how many attendees you've gotten the seats. It's how many disciples you put in the streets. Yeah, it's what are you doing in your local community and. Yes, that is such a level way of talking about it because what happens is if, if we're so focused on diversity as a goal, rather than Jesus as a goal, we, we artificially do things. Yeah, yes. In order to make us swash our feelings, rather than that community and doing something to help. The last manufacturing of church. So, so which brings me to this, this whole thing of pastoring his, there's so many pastors leaving the ministry right now. It seems to be such a high incidence of stress because COVID, you know, do I go online, not online, mask up, tell my people to mask, not mask all these different. If you will social cultural things and yet, then at the same time you've got this desire to minister to people now you can't. We've got very dear friends, a bishop, Jackson's church and Vinshard Dobbins who you've met. Vinshard told me that that they were doing a funeral by zoom. Every couple of days during the work, the Delta pandemic thing. You know, and he said it was really stressful because you couldn't reach out and hug anybody. Yeah. You know, how are you dealing with that stress? What do you, what would you advise us? Because we're all dealing with some level of that. But how do you deal with that ministry and how do you help others deal with that? Well, I, you know, once again, I would love to say that there's a cookie cut away. But at the core of it is I would say your prayer life. And I don't want to say I'm sorry cliche. I don't want to sound, you know, it's a Jesus thing. Yeah, it is. Right. And I think that the core of it is your prayer life. And then the second thing that I think is perspective. Right. And so I think we need to change our perspective and looking at, okay, how can I reach out and touch someone? Right. What does reach out and touch someone looked like in its digital age? Right. And what has been provided technologically wise to, so I think, you know, for us, one of the things that we have been doing, we've invested, you know, in some, some things from over a period of time economically. And we started, you started sending gifts and interact with people at a different level. And for us, that worked for us, you know, where say, hey, look, I can't hug you, you know, but here's the edible arrangement. I can't hug you. But here's something to, you know, to get, you know, and I believe that food is one of the quickest way to somebody's heart. And they're broken, right. But I think that we need a so perspective, right, looking at, okay, what does, how can somebody look like in this day and eight? And our two really are looking at what is the dynamics of the body, believe it's you called two minutes or two. And start hearing from them, right, because we sometimes as passes put on unnecessary stress on us, because we want to respond to the people like we used to. And we feel that they're missing out because we're missing out. But for them, they are okay with certain elements to have been developed and presented. While we're going through, we're going through so we create a misconception and unnecessary stress, because we said, okay, no, this person needs a hug. No, but okay, maybe you needed the hug. But this person was okay, you know, in the fact that you were just there. So do it, you can do it, you can do it. Yeah, just trust Jesus. Yes, right. So we're praying for it. We're praying that I can look, because my prayer is a good Lord. I pray that my presence becomes the comforting factor for this individual because I can't hug them. Right. So my prayer is not changing based on a circumstances situation. And that's what works for us. That's what's been working for us as mentioned, because every week we had a funeral, right. So so at the numbers of weeks and days go by of COVID was the same number of days that we have a funeral as well. And at first it was hard, hugging people, you know, but when I started getting letters back and to rack with people and they said, well, past, I'm just glad you made it. You know, you the fact that you risk catching COVID, right to come out and be with us for our funeral. Thank you. Right. So they look at the risk factor differently. Yeah, so part of it in our neighborhoods with friends and loved ones and relatives and, you know, sometimes it's just a phone call or a text. Yeah, or, you know, slip something in a card and send us notes. You know, the small little acts of kindness have huge results, don't they? Yes, yeah, and that's where we said, so even for my, my, my, my God son, his birthday just passed. And because of the height, he's too, we just turned to word about, you know, COVID, we just sent a huge messy basket of stuff, you know, things that his mother would hate. And yeah, and then, you know, so we see this and it's like, you know, his excitement about it. He loved it and annoyed his mother, but in the long term, she was just so happy that he was able to experience something during this time. That's fantastic. I love it. So now with your own children, how do you pass on a legacy? How do you raise, how do we raise up a vibrant next generation? In the midst of all this, I, Jamal, I have talked to people who have said to me, face to face, 30 year olds. Yeah, I don't think we're going to have children because we don't want to raise in this kind of world. You know, when I was a kid, we didn't have iPads, we didn't have anything. But how do you raise up vibrant followers of Christ? You know, here's your children from 21 down. One of the things I had to become was a Sunday school teacher. Right. You know, and I think every parent and his learn how to become a Sunday school teacher, especially as they age, start learning how to have these stories and relate them to what's going on. I asked my son, I said, I said, Liam, he's nine years old. I said, do you know who David is? And he said, who David your friend? I said, no, David from the Bible. He said, no, let's talk about David. Right. Yeah. And it is the curiosity of me just asking that he know about this individual. He created, you know, a desire to hear the story. Yeah. Right. And I think, well, first of all, your first question is about legacy. I think I identified the fine, what legacy looks like. Right. For individuals. And then look in that. So somebody asked me, well, Jamal, what's your legacy? And so it's difficult, you know, to say, talk about my legacy without talking about my dad's legacy, because ultimately my legacy is attached to his legacy. Right. And there's this. So there's a route. You know, that my father created and the tree. I call legacy. And then as the family branches out, you know, you see the different branches of the expression of that individualistic legacy of each of our brothers. But it's so attached to that main tree that my father created. And, you know, and we know that a part of that legacy necessity to have a thriving relationship with Christ is at the core of legacy for us as the Bernards. And with that, I had to say, OK, what is a creative way to respond to the need for my kids to understand the core biblical tenants of our faith. Yeah. And from there, I said, OK, let's be creative. And like I said, I would like to say it will do this. But I said, the reason why I say send a school teacher, because the Sunday school teacher had to learn how to be creative understanding the group of kids. Right. So one group is not the same as another group. That's a great picture. Right. I might teach the other group about the Bible this way. But that this group might be taught this way. So like my daughter, she's just has a curious mind. And so she'll see me reading the Bible. It's the day what you're reading. And she'll tell me to read it to her. I'm like, how about if I tell you the story. Right. And instead of just reading it to her because it's a chicken board with some of the biblical text. Right. And so I, that's why I use an analogy of everybody has become a Sunday school teacher. It's great. That's fantastic. I love that. Yeah. So parenting has a legacy. Yeah. Really telling your story. I think too often as parents, we don't tell our children our story. Yeah. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The goods, the bags. You know, I don't tell them to ugly. But the good and the bads of Jamal Bernard is like the kids are familiar with it. Tell them the ugly. Yeah, I don't tell them the ugly. Yeah, I remember the information, the information our kids, we, we she own our kids based on the maturity. And I don't think my kids are mature enough to already they handed ugly of Jamal. You know, I've got a couple of friends who have done this over the years that they've written in their Bibles every year and then handed those Bibles off to their children and to loved ones. Every year, I've got one friend, Bob Roberts, who's done that for I think now 30 years. And giving them the different loved ones and so forth. And they really hit me and I thought, well, I haven't done that with my kids. I mean, I've passed on my stories, but I thought what about my grandchildren because I'm at that age. And so my first, when my first grandchild hit 10 years old. She's a young lady named Reese. She's now 15, five years ago. So six years ago, I started carrying with me a little pink Bible. I bought it for her, but for a year, I would sit in cafes on the road and whatever. And I would write in this Bible, our stories. Judy, now, you know, when we were in a really tough time, what Psalm 46 meant to us. The time I was in an airplane where the engine blew up and God saved our lives. You know, all these different little stories, you don't necessarily always think about it. You don't necessarily talk about them at the dinner table because you're talking about other stuff current. And so I wrote all these stories and underlined all these scriptures in this little Bible. And then when she turned 10, I had it in a little package and she opened it and it was this very special gift. And then I thought, now I have a second one who's, you know, a little boy. I said, little boy, dude, he's been holding on. Big guy. And I put that in the same thing for him when he turned 10. So when I handed it over everybody looked and went, oh, we know what that is. Yeah. All these stories. In fact, I'm going to get them each back and write some more stories in there. Some other things I've thought of, you know, wow. And I think we don't do that kind of thing. I think we, John Tyson, who's a friend of yours there. Yes. Just wrote a book about the intentional father. Yes. Great book on how he raised his son. I think the next generation needs our stories. I think you're absolutely right. Yep. They need to know the stories of David. Yes. And they need to know the stories of Samson. Samson's promise and his failure. Yep. Right. Yes. And his ultimate win. And yet at the same time, how much more he could have done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel great. And it actually fun. As you know, they. We start opening up to our kids. And you know, they hit him saying, man, day, I didn't know that. You know, and I remember talking to my daughter. She's 21. And she's older. I was. And she actually said, damn sorry. You had to go through that. Right. And. And when it explains the whole, you know, from a buildable perspective of how I got to it. She said, wow, thank you. And she took her Bible. And. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it turned into Bible in her own. Started underlining the text that I shared with her. You know, and then put a little note, uh, can remember the note was, but she put a little note. And. Now, that come, it became a scripture that she would go to. Wow. But she was doing the certain things. Yeah. So it became hers. Yeah, yeah. It's not just knowing a bunch of scriptures, which is important. Our friend Samuel Duth, who wrote a book just recently, called the 52 Most Important Scriptures of Teacher Children. What a great idea, because I'd be like one a week, you know? Yeah. He's raising up small kids, and he used it, and then he put it out there. You know, your father went from being an angry young man. You know, an angry with where he was in life, an angry about, you know, racism in the culture he was in, and angry about his father not being there in all these different things, and arrested by Jesus Christ. Yes. I mean, a radical change. And then now he ends up raising these boys. One of the most important things your father advised you or counseled you, what were some of the most important things you remember, your dad, really you go, man, that is something I live by now. Wow. It's funny because I'm working on this thing called Lessons for My Father. Really? Yeah, just pointing out all the big major lessons that my father has taught me. You know, one of the biggest ones is success, right? And I'm not talking about, you know, major success, right? Because I'm a big believer that even a small success matter. Like the day-to-day success is where I set a goal and I completed that goal at the end of the day. You know, one of the books he had his read was The Man. I'm getting two books mixed up, but it's a great, but old school book by, I'll get the book, but he says he taught me that he said that all success begins with one decision, right? And he said that the reality is that everybody makes a decision because not to do something is a decision, right? Not to do something become a decision as well. That's a decision. Yes, so what he did was he really put it into the idea in our head saying, make a decision, right? The other major key that he taught us, and because it was a decision, but a man without a vision for their future will always live in the past. So you have to have a decision based on a vision for your future. Yeah, it's so classic. Yeah, and that was the biggest, the biggest lesson he taught us. Yeah, decisions come out of your heart. Yes. Yeah, so it's what you put in your heart that creates your decisions because decisions come out of definition. Yes. So how do you plan yourself? You make decisions, your decisions become your destiny. Yep. So that's why, and that's why that statement is so key because people will procrastinate, tend to have a wrestle with a self-esteem mission. Yeah, wow. Because we don't want to mess up. Yeah, something is in our self-esteem that we're wrestling with, right? That are so down to a desire to make a proper decision to go towards our vision. You made a statement in one of your messages, concerns to your church. All creation was made to live at maximum potential. Yes. Yes. So God's desire for us, right? When you look at the creation, he said it was good, right? And each element of creation was designed to produce at its maximum level, right? Toes, fruit, animals, whatever it is, but then when it came to humans, right? We were already the only ones who had a decision to say no to that maximum potential. But God has called us to live in a second, no. What's your maximum? Where are you producing at such a level, right? That, and we often don't look at our life like this, but what are we producing? How are we producing it? And are we always striving to reach our maximum potential? That's why when you look at a lot of these major, and I go to athletics a lot because I was a athlete, but when we look at athletes, the first thing they're doing, they're practicing, they say, okay, can I reach my maximum? And what does my maximum look like? Yeah. And then once I reach there, how do I stay here? Wow. So those are the three questions, can I reach it? What does it look like? Can I stay here? And often we as human beings, we don't look at life at that level. Wow. Yeah. How do we, how do we listen to your messages? Is it on the Christian Cultural Center? Give me that website. Yes, it's our www.cccinfo.org. I-N-F-O-D-O-G. C-C-C-N-F-O.org. Yes, and if you wanted to follow me, you could follow me on Jamal, J-A-M-A-L, underscore Bernard, that's Instagram. And also I got the book, the book, it was like once again, it's an old school book. It's the seven strategies for wealth and happiness. Jim wrong. Jim wrong, you know that one. Yeah. Yeah, that's an old book. No, but it's there, if you will, there are evergreen principles. Yes, always. Your presence will always evergreen. Yeah. So C-C-N-F-O-D-O-R-G. Yes. And that will get you to the website. And then from there, you can, there's online, there's messages by your father, there's there's summons by you. Yes. And you guys are in Brooklyn and Long Island. Of course, you know, you've got the New York thing going on with the, you know, and there's a process for another couple of weeks. But, and then you're expanding into Florida at some point. Yes, Orlando, Orlando. Yes, Orlando. And, yeah, and like, could you have asked the question, and one of the things that we do, we're not, we don't expand, just to expand. Our expansion always goes based on where our people are. So people relocated, they want us, they want that C-C-C experience. So we said, okay, let's go to them. As long as it makes sense, you know, it is something that we do. So we went to Orlando because our families moved, you know, hundreds of our members moved to Central Florida. So, yeah. Okay. That's all right. Hey, listen, I live in Texas, I'm from California. I love California. I love, I love where I grew up. And now they're a little bit of a mess right now. But, but I love that place in, in praying for my friends and God bless the people who stay. But the same thing, there's a whole bunch of people in Cali that are in Texas now, yeah. Yes. And the same thing has happened in Florida. There's a whole bunch of people out in New York that are in Florida now. They used to be that just go down for the, you know, in the winter or something, you know, for a couple of weeks. You get out of the cold, but now it's a year round time. Yes. Yeah. So I quite a diaspora that's happening out of, so yeah, it's going to bring some changes. So I'm glad you guys are doing that. That's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, and then we have a fun. I think also, if you know, if I can have fun with ministry, have fun, you know, we sometimes lose out on a desire to do this and do that and become important and minister to this person. And I'm at a place, I just have fun. People say, well, you can do that because your father says, yeah, that's part of my father's legacy. I'm at a place where I can have fun with ministry. And I thank God for my father to do what he has to do and to push so that we can have fun doing ministry. And if you want to say, well, that's your father, he helped you do that and why don't you prepare your life so that your kid is going to have fun and not go through what you go through. That's cool. Yeah, because I think of, like my friend, Glenn Pickett, they're in Jackson, Mississippi. I think of his dad, his dad used to bring a little sack lunch to work every day. He would take that extra three or four dollars, you know, maybe it's in our day and age, be five or six dollars. He would have spent on lunch and he started buying little pieces of property. And he ended up passing on to, to, Dwayne and his brother, Charles about a thousand acres of property. He bought over a 40 year period. Yes. Well, it's not a lot of it expanded into and it's created a legacy for his grandchildren and their children. Yep. Well, maybe a piece of property, maybe intellectual rights. It may just be, you know, you pass on the willingness to love others. It may be a sense of service, whatever it is. Now, let me finish with this. You do Sabbath though, you practice Sabbath though. Yes. You get away a recorder. Yes. You, you, you, you make sure you have family time. So you practice Sabbath, which means you're fast. So when you say you're having, you know, you have fun, but it doesn't just happen. You, you make that happen on purpose. Yeah, yeah, and, yeah, nothing just happens. That's good for you unless you're intentional about it. Wow. And yeah, I make sure that I have my Sabbath. I understand that my, my makeup is different than our father's makeup. You know, my father had this work ethic that he built his work, work. I think he's the never stop working, you know, he's a transition from responsibility, but he'll never stop working. But I understand that I need a Sabbath. I need a time to just let go, not answer the phone, not answer any emails. And I do it quarterly. I do it quarterly. And the, the irony is that I start seeing my work productivity decrease. I said, yeah, talk like Sabbath, right? So I start calling the kid, who is Jamal? How do I operate? How do I function? And I come, and one of the things I come to realization is, I'm not AR Bernard. So I don't work like AR Bernard. This is what I need in order for me to produce at a maximum level. Well, I have to find our own rhythm. Yes. Yep, everybody has a rhythm. Everybody needs a rhythm. And a part of your rhythm, I believe, is a time of relax and relief. Jesus had a rhythm. Yes. Yes. You know, he got asked to go a lot of places, but he didn't always go there. I got clapped out with him. Amen. Yes. Yes. We do about this. Jesus, you know, in fact, Larry Ross and I were talking about it yesterday. And Larry was saying, he says, man, I gotta, I gotta be honest. He said, I got a little FOMO, you know, if you're missing out, I got a little FOMO when he says, I go to many places. And he said, a friend of his had told him, you know, Jesus didn't go to places where something was happening. It's just where every where Jesus went, something started happening. Yes. Yes. Yep. Exactly. Wasn't like he went to a wedding, hey, I'm going to do some miracles. Yep. He was just hanging out. Yes. Then a miracle, the wedding at Cana presented itself. And then he had some disciples and one of them had a mother-in-law and he's, yeah, well, you know, let's go over there. And then another one had a village he grew up and said, hey, can you come over and see my end loss? Yeah, let's go. Yep. Yes. And then the man, you know, where's it marked to where they cut through the roof? You know, I healed. That was probably the guest. Yeah, well, that was in the hometown of Jesus. In fact, many people think that that was actually his house they got a hole in. So like, he didn't go looking for stuff, stuff, you know, it happened because he had the power of the Holy Spirit. We have Jesus in us. So wherever we're at, stuff should happen. Yes. Yep. Amen. You just had a rhythm. You got away a lot. And you talked about prayer earlier. And I know that's a big part of your life. You talk about it once. And Jesus prayed. Yes. He got away. He rested. He rested his flesh, if you will, his physical body. He spent time with friends. He, you find them a lot. He was eating food with friends. Yes. He did a lot of that. Mm-hmm. On the ground. True. On the ground ministry. On the ground ministry. From the temple table and from the table to the temple. Amen. Amen. Yep. Pastor with my friend, Pastor Jamal Bernard, who's the senior pastor of Christian Cultural Center Long Island and the CEO of Christian Cultural Center based in Brooklyn with a church soon to happen in Orlando. In fact, it may have already happened by the time you hear this podcast. Thanks for hanging around with me. Thank you. Thanks for sharing. There was a thing you said about diversity, which was contextualized. Yes. I think for all of us, one of the things that we need to learn from you and from others like you is to minister to the world in which we're in. Amen. Yes. It's too many people want to go across the ocean. Yep. Before they go across the street. Oh, it's so good. It's so good. Yes. So thanks for being on Brave Men today and it's nice to meet you. Thank you. We're forward to spending time together in the future. Bless you. Bless you. You've just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian Men's Network. Connect with Paul at cmn.man or write to him at Paul at cmn.man.