 We want to go on and start on time. So I'm going to ask if you're not speaking, if you will mute out and I'm going to ask Bishop McKee, if he will pray our meeting in and then tell us about the genesis of BCI as we move forward through our time. Thank all of you for coming. You want me to tell you about the genesis for BCI? If you would like to. Okay. Let us pray. Holy God, we are grateful that we're able to gather this evening to consider our work, the work that you've entrusted us to do. We're reminded that this afternoon, that we're talking about BCI and about its future. Our future is the North Texas Conference in terms of our ministry with our African-American brothers and sisters, and their ministries together. God, we ask your blessings upon all that we do this night. We're grateful for S. Diana and the work that she has done and others who have supported her, and we celebrate that this evening as well. Of course, the name of the Christ I pray, amen. I'll give you a brief rundown how we got to this point, how we got to the point in the beginning, and not in terms of how we morphed into the nomenclature so much as what we propose to do. It's obvious that none of our work related anything in annual conferences but over the work will continue after everyone on this call has gone to the next place in their life, to be honest. This is ongoing work. It's not to say that it is critical work and it is urgent work. I don't want to say that. But in that time, so I have to give a lot of credit also to Kami Gassen at the time who we were talking about some of the things that we were aware of, that we're learning more about, and we needed somebody to address this and somebody to spend about three years working and solely in and with the African-American churches and clergy and laity. And we came to the conclusion quickly, I might add, that Estayana would be the perfect person to do it because we knew that she would see the tasks that were involved. We knew that she knew the Black church and the Dallas area well. And when I say the Dallas area, I mean, most of our African-American churches are in Dallas, not all of them, but most of them. And we think that's a place where we need to do better than we've done. And so that's how we got there. And we had also done some considered doing the work with, I don't think, Estayana, I don't think I need to really go into this in any great detail with. No, sir. That's all I'll say. I'm through. OK, that's it. Thank you. Thank you, Vishamaki. I will say some more about that a little bit later in our time together this evening. We have asked one of our pastors to respond to the importance of BCI. And so I'm going to ask Mr. President, the newly elected installed president of our African-American clergy group, if he will talk about BCI. And so we thank Joshua for accepting that role and Mr. President, we would like to hear from you now. Thank you very much, Reverend Estayana. You always got to gas me up. Now you made me nervous. I'm more nervous staring at your faces on the screen than I would have been if we were in person. But very briefly, since I have four and a half minutes, for me, the Black Church Initiative is really honestly the reason why I'm sitting before you today. As far as my own story is concerned, I graduated from seminary a couple of years ago. And fresh out of seminary, I was appointed to succeed a pastor master's at Warren. And so I did not have any experience serving as an associate at another church. My internship was kind of weird. So I didn't learn all the things I needed to learn. And for some reason or another, God saw fit to make sure I started my journey at Warren. And because of that, I had to learn a lot relatively quickly out of frying pan into the fire. And some things were sort of lost in transition. It was also my first professional job. So I was not aware of all of the spoken and unspoken expectations, if you will. And in doing that, my back was, in many ways, just against the wall. And no matter how much God, I believe, had given me a vision for what Warren could be, I couldn't live into it because of my frustration with a number of different things. And I would argue that I was the only one who was frustrated with myself. And so as there was growing frustration, it would have been very easy for me to kind of give up. And also for, I mean, honestly, our cabinet to give up on this experiment. But Reverend Masters made sure I was connected to a coach who really understood me, but understood our connection and how to begin translating some of the language that was lost in translation for me, helping me understand some of the unspoken expectations, and helping me grow into a level of comfort with who I was and where I was going. And what was at the time was a skills gap. And I think Black Church Initiative is not the only pastor that's happened for. I'm sure that's happened for a number of us. Excuse me, I have a one-year-old here. But I'm not the only pastor that's happened for. And I truly believe that that is the reason I'm still here. And not just here in the North Texas Conference, but really in ministry in general, was because of the Black Church Initiative. And to that point, I think there is a perceived skills gap in our African-American clergy, whether that is real or perception is another conversation or what expectations are for pastors in different settings is another conversation. But I think the work of BCI has been to create common language and translate where translation is needed, and to coordinate and stand in the gap. And also, last thing, as I closed a couple of years ago, I had an opportunity to visit the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. When I visited the Land Institute, the president of the Land Institute taught us something. He basically shared with us that they did not plant individual plant species in homogenous pools, but rather put different plant species next to one another because diversity helped to breed resilience amongst the plants. And so I would argue for us moving forward, the reason a Black Church Initiative is important because it strengthens us as a connection in total. Even as our African-American clergy are strengthened and equipped to succeed, that strengthens our clergy pool in general because diversity does, in fact, breed resilience. And I am grateful for the Black Church Initiative. I look forward to what it will become. Reverend Masters, you're muted still. Thank you, Pastor Joshua. We are very thankful for your work with Warren and the North Texas Conference and in your leadership. I have asked Minister Phoebe Hutchins to talk about the importance of the laity. When we think about the Black Church Initiative, it's not just the work of the pastors. Nothing that's done in the church is just the work of the pastors. The work of the laity is critically important. And so I'm going to ask her if she will talk about the role of laity in the work of BCI. Amen. Thank you, Reverend Masters. I'm sure a lot of you know me. And it's good to be on this call with you all tonight. I'm a pastor's child. I mean, if you may not know that. So therefore, I know the importance of clergy. And I know the role that clergy plays in the church, the tiring role sometimes, the uncomfortable role. But I also know that laity is somehow the glue, if you will, that holds the church together. If the laity is uncomfortable, somehow the congregation, the church is uncomfortable. But I've worked with Pastor Masters since the conception of BCI. And after the vision was laid, the churches were chosen. And I also serve on St. Luke's BCI committee. And the importance of laity in this entire Black Church initiative is once pastors lay the vision out before the church, it's the laity that actually do the work. And once the vision is laid, it's the laity that takes the responsibility and those different ministry areas to recruit other laypeople, other disciples to come in and actually do the work. So being on St. Luke's team has been such a blessing because by our church being so large and having two services, you don't always know everyone. We would always say we have two churches, the 8 o'clock church and the 11 o'clock church. But this team somehow brought us together in a different way, whereas we could put ideas together and know what our strengths and weaknesses are. And BCI also brought in Mystery Guest. And we did a survey for the church, in the church. The congregation actually led this survey to kind of show us our strengths and weaknesses. And therefore, we were able to sit down together, led by a layperson, May Francis Rowlett and Mrs. Oh my god, I can't think of pronunciation, don't kill me. But anyway, Joyce Bell, Mrs. Joyce Bell. And so we sat down, we found our strengths. We didn't really focus a lot on our strengths. We know our strengths. We focus more on our weaknesses and how we could get an expedite those moves in ways that we could connect with our congregations. Because a lot of times, us as Laity, doing the footwork a lot of times, we think we're always doing it right. But until up, because we're leading it. But until those who are not leading it come in and say, hey, I wasn't welcome well in this area, or the audio could be better, or the visuals could be better, or the worship guide is too long, or it's too short. Or I mean, just things that we need to know. So Laity is very important in our all churches. However, I am the chair of Black Methodist for Church Renewal from North Texas. So of course, you all know the Black Church is a heart piece for me. But anyway, we're here for our clergy. And as I started, and I will end the same way, I've always been very partial to clergy because I am a PK. And I know what you all go through behind the doors that a lot of people can't see and hear. So we continue to lift you all up. And that's what we're here for. So I didn't use four minutes. But hey, somebody else can take my time. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. So I wanted everyone to know that BCI is housed in our center for church development. I have invited our director, Reverend Dr. Owen Ross, to respond to what has been said up till this point. So Dr. Ross? Yeah. And I want to start by saying that I feel blessed that BCI is housed in the Center for Church Development because it really collaborates across all the centers. And we have with us tonight the director for the Center for Mission and Outreach, Andy Lewis, with us, as well as the superintendent for the Metro District, Debra Homs Mason. And Esnaiana and BCI have worked closely with all of them. But as Reverend Master says, it is housed in the Center for Church Development. She and I started on the same day and navigated this work together. And we began talking about this meeting that we're having tonight in May when she had announced that she was retiring. We said, we need to have a meeting in which we can share what has been the impact of BCI during these three years and communicate what our next steps are going to be. And so we've been talking about this meeting and preparing for this meeting. And I thank God for the presence of each and every one of you here tonight. And we'll now ask Reverend Masters to share with you the work that we have done over these three years as well as share what is next with the Black Church Initiative. Thank you. Thank you. So you've heard a little bit about the Black Church Initiative. What I'm going to do is go through a PowerPoint and talk about where we have come, what we have done, and then our next steps. I've done many PowerPoints over my career, but I've not ever had a PowerPoint where I'm not changing the slides. So Zoom brings about a change, and change is not always bad. It's just different. So I invite you to have patience. And as we go through this, we will have questions. You may have questions at the end. I would like for you to just take a moment to look at this slide. I'm not going to say a lot about it, but I would like you to listen. I mean, I would like you to look really closely. And what I would say if I was in person, I would say, call their names. So I'm going to pause for you to look at this slide. I know I've asked you to mute out, but do you see the names of all of the people there? That's very important. And we could add other names. Owen, I'm going to need to change this. I believe that Jesus believed that not only did black lives matter, but that black hopes, black dreams, black communities, black children, and thus, the black church matters. The black church is the heart of all of those that matter. When we think about, in our Center for Church Development, supporting our black churches, we support our black churches because our black communities are so important. When you think about the black church, you think about the black community. They're not all right there around you. If you think about St. Luke, I don't know of anybody that lived in walking distance of St. Luke. St. Luke has members all around. So does the village. So does St. Paul. So does St. Hamilton Park. But it's the community. And we mean community in general. It's so important for us to think about the black community when you think about voter suppression, when you think about our black men and black women being killed. People are coming to the church to say, what are our next steps? So yes, it's important for us to support our black churches because that supports our black communities. In our, when we think about the black churches of the North Texas Conference, we've been struggling on many levels. When Bishop McKee looked at this, Bishop McKee decided to shine a light upon this situation and not just shine a light on it, but think about the necessity of doing something about it. The light was there, but nobody had done anything about it. So a new position was added to the Center for Church Development for the exclusive. And I just wanna repeat that for the exclusive purpose of working with our black pastors and the laity of our black churches in the North Texas Conference. What do we start with? We started with investing in our black church related to preaching. That was one of our first cohort. If you know anything about the black church, you know, preaching is fundamental. You have to be really strong in preaching to be effective in the black church. And I'm gonna say something about that a little bit later. We also invested in leadership in the black church. As you heard Phoebe say, laity is involved in every aspect. So we have laity and preachers working together. What we did from the very beginning, we equipped our laity and clergy with not just with new faces, new spaces. When the conference decided to do a new initiative, new faces, new spaces, we did a workshop at Warren United Methodist Church just for our black churches. We did a session on stewardship and finance. One of the leaders for that session is owned this called Reverend Melvin Amerson for Texas Methodist Foundation. We're glad that we're here. We did a workshop on discipleship led by Reverend Dr. Dwight Radcliffe. And in doing that, he talked about how do you make disciples when you don't have a district superintendent to go to saying you need money, you don't have a conference office to go to to say you need money. How do you build and how do you form disciples? We did a whole days lesson on that. And social media. We did social media before COVID. Dr. Cogman came here from Baltimore, a DS in the Baltimore area. And she talked about social media. The first time she came, we invited her to do a session for the clergy. How to do an SPRC meeting, how to do all of the meetings just on social media on Facebook. Now that we're doing COVID, we have COVID, what we have taught the black churches for two years before COVID hit, we started with that with Dr. Cogman. So it's one thing to have programs, but it's another thing to be financially invested. And so I think Bishop McKee and the conference for not only creating this job, but also putting money in it. So the village is one of our new church starts. You may not know this, but the village is the first new church start that the North Texas conference had as black since the 1950s. There had not been a new black church start in the North Texas conference, this Hamilton Park. So we wanted to encourage them and we invested first $50,000. They accepted the challenge and raised another $50,000. And during COVID, when that challenge was met, we met together on the parking lot and they passed a Derek received a check for $50,000. When was the last time that a black church received $100,000? That shows that the North Texas conference is interested in supporting our black churches. We also supported black church pastors. We have Pastor Payton at Payton Parker at First Methodist Lancaster as he's starting a new black congregation while sustaining the church that's there. We also have Miranda and congratulations to Miranda for passing DCOM today. And the BCI is involved in supporting those black church pastors. As Joshua mentioned earlier, coaches are needed for clergy. Every one of our four largest churches, our four BCI churches, Hamilton Park, the village, St. Paul, St. Luke, each one of those churches had a coach. But that wasn't the only group that had coaches. Several of our young clergy also had coaches and we believe the conference has been involved in coaches for a while and we use that resource for our clergy. We also had a program that we called 2020 Leadership and it worked hand in hand with our mystery guest assessment. We did the 2020 Leadership in our four largest churches and the main piece, Phoebe referred to it, is an assessment. Every church had that assessment done by the entire congregation. It was hard work. It took a long time and the pastors would call me to say, it has taken so long to get this done, but what happened as a result of them staying with that and being encouraged is when we did the mystery guest, which was following 2020 Leadership, what we saw by people coming to these churches that had not ever gone to church or hadn't gone in a long time, where some of the weaknesses were, not one of those churches saw those weaknesses for the first time. They all had been already identified and moving forward in addressing those weaknesses. So 2020 Leadership and mystery guest worked hand in hand. So we have equipped our clergy with preaching. We led that with Reverend Dr. Kevin Muriel, one of our young adult preachers in the nation. He leads one of our largest churches, but we didn't just get him. We also partnered with Dr. Alice McKenzie, the leader of preaching at Perkins School of Theology. They worked hand in hand in helping our large church pastors improve their preaching. It was, we called it iron sharpening iron. Two of them on this call, I saw Derek and Chiron on the call, they will gladly tell you. We worked really hard in that, but we didn't want to just have those large church pastors equipped. We did a leadership cohort with Reverend Dr. Kevin Muriel with our young black clergy. Bishop McKee is talking all about equipping our young black clergy. So we brought them along and they had a year with Reverend Dr. Muriel also. We had many other people come in to do innovative ministries with all of our congregations. So when we were equipping the congregations, separate from equipping the clergy, they first did an assessment. That assessment took a really long time. It had them to look inside rather than outside. No one had to guess where they were strong. No one had to guess where they were weak. I would say this slide helps you to understand why BCI is different from other programs across the nation that other annual conferences uses because what BCI does is it is a prescriptive program. So what we saw as strengths and weaknesses for Hamilton Park were different from St. Paul, different from the village and different from St. Luke. So each church were able to assess where they were strong, where they were weak. They worked with their coaches to respond to those weaknesses, as Phoebe already mentioned, and that helped to start the improvement of strengthening that congregation. So we look at what we've done over those three years. We've helped our churches not only to make disciples but form disciples. We've done it through leadership on every level, clergy and laity. We've done it with preaching with our clergy. We've done it also with coaching. We've had several coaching teams that have worked with our clergy and with our cohorts. We had several cohorts that we've formed and provided for over these three years. One of the cohorts was a young cohort where we took them to Houston and they were exposed to two of our churches there, two of our church leaders there and they wanted more and we were excited about that. We had a cohort of pastors that were very different in what, how they did their ministry. They were all south of Dallas and they got together and came up with a focus on how to do ministry and what they could do together. That was one of the last cohorts we put together and it ended in the spring of 2020 and their work is even continuing. So this slide helps you to look at BCI in a holistic kind of thing because if I had one slide to say, what did we do? This is what we did and I showed you the financial aspects of it. So in the midst of the pandemic of racism that's going on across our nation, including our city, including our United Methodist Church, the world is watching and learning how the United States has treated black men. We see them killed on a regular basis and it just tears me up and not just our black men but black women who are just in their home and thus how is the United States going to support the black people's dreams and hopes and successes and children and how do we move forward? And I think to take it away from the US but how do we do it in the church? Well, these are our next steps. These are the steps that we've already begun. We will have BCI teams, not just in our four large churches but we have extended it to Warren and Church of the Disciples. Those BCI teams, all six of those teams will be organized and become very active in what it means to strengthen their congregation. These BCI teams will either continue implementing their assessments and the two that have not started the implementation they will be allowed to start the assessments so that we will know for sure where they're strong and where they're weak and what our next steps are. And all of this work involves them working with clergy and laities to maximize the ministerial potential of every single church. Their strengths and weaknesses are different church by church but this is a prescriptive program for that reason. Each BCI team will have a coach and that coach will help them not only to develop and execute the goals but to come up with benchmarks and strategies and strategies for making disciples. Every year that we've had BCI, we have had a conference-wide training session. The last one was held at Warren and we had national leaders come in. Reverend Mevin Emerson was one. We had the White Ratcliffe come in. We had Jim Salley come in about finances from the African University. We had Dr. Cogman come in. We have national leaders come in and every single church, every single black church is invited to come to our trainings. And so in our next steps, rather than having that training in May, what we're hoping to do is have that training in fall, in the fall. So I'm asking you to pay attention to that. Look forward to receiving a date. It will be in the month of December but every black church, including clergy and laity, clergy who are not serving black churches like Edlin Cowley, who is not serving a black church. We always invite him and others, April Bristo, who's not serving a black church. They come to all of our trainings like this training and we're looking forward to having that to just kind of see what the fall has encompassed and what we'll be doing from that. And this next slide is gonna tell you why we do it. We must find a way, my brothers and sisters, to look after one another as if we were one tribe. That's a quote from Chalala Chadwick Boseman and I would say to you as Owen closes that, Wakanda forever for all of us. I would invite you to join me and stand Wakanda forever for all of us. All of us on this call Wakanda forever. I would like to invite the director of CCD to add anything I may have left out. It takes a lot more energy to get a ball rolling than to keep a ball rolling. And so although Reverend Masters officially entered into her retirement status on July one, I have asked her and since contracted her to ensure that this work continues. You know, we find ourselves in unique times and in the life of our church navigating what we'll be and what our needs are and what our needs are going to be. But I am thankful that she is generously accepted and is continuing this work. As she was going over the work that has been done, I kind of felt a little bit, as she was talking about different things, I was like, but you forgot to talk about fish. You forgot, you didn't mention this. And then I was like, well, I guess I felt a little bit about John when he was writing about our Lord. If we were to report on everything that she did, it would be a much longer PowerPoint than we presented tonight. I wanna say that it's been a team effort for the Center for Church Development. We were talking about this this afternoon, although Reverend Masters led BCI, it had the attention, energy and work time of all of the members of the Center for Church Development. Brenda, Peyton, Parker can share about how much Matt Temple has worked with them, as well as Derek Jacobs and has been partnering with our planters. And so there's been investment directly from our staff in the work of our black churches, as well as our collaboration. Liliana von Hill is on here, she's coordinating this. Liliana had led our Healthy Church Initiative and when we came in, we were talking about BCI and we said, we want BCI to be like HCI, but we want it to be black and better. And they have developed that aspect, but that's only been one aspect of BCI that has been developed. And Liliana von Hill played an integral part in the development of that strategy in investing in our churches. And so if you only leave with one thing tonight, I want you to leave with this, the North Texas Conference Leadership and the Center for Church Development is committed to ensuring that our black churches are invested in and that they are strengthened and that we continue to make reaching the African-American mission field a priority. And I am thankful for the work of S. Diana Masters for the leadership around BCI, for Minister Hutchins, for Edlin Cowley, for Joshua Manning and all who have been invested to make what was shared tonight possible and we're committed to continuing this. I had a long conversation with President Manning last night and said as we start looking forward to 2021 in the future, that I wanna make sure that we are communicating and gathering and staying connected to what is needed in our black congregations and how we can best invest in their fruitfulness. So I thank all of you for being here tonight and we'll turn it back over to Reverend Masters. Thank you Reverend Dr. Ross. When we think about the next steps, one of the things that I've said to several of you on this call is I will be meeting with you, we'll set up a team meeting with the pastor and the BCI team coming, not coming to you as I have done in the past three years, but we'll come together on Zoom and start our work again and make sure that you're organized, that you have your assessments right there ready to go and we're not gonna need to start from scratch. We have two new churches that we've added to this and that's Warren and Church of the Disciple we've always planned to continue to add churches but I will be meeting with each one of your churches coming together with your BCI teams. I'm looking forward to that and we do that work individually because the work, the conversation I will have with St. Luke will be completely different than the conversation I will have at Hammond and Park. So look across these three pages, I see a lot of clergy, I mean a lot of laity particularly that are on BCI teams and I am so excited to have you here. So other than specifically for your church if there are particular questions that you wanna ask, you can unmute and we will receive those questions and answer them if we can and if not, we will get back with you. So are there any particular questions that you would like to ask? I see somebody's hand up. Yes, so I have Diana, Lilliana here. Lilliana, hi. Hi, how are you? Good. So we have two questions here so far. In the chat? Yes, so I'll kind of like, I'll share them with you and then you can answer. The questions is, will this team focus on smaller black churches this go around? Yes, yes we have. So at this point, Warren is a small black church. They won't continue to be a small black church but at this point that's one of the churches that we're including. So yes, to answer that question. Is there another question? Yes, how many black churches do we have now and how many will we have in 2021? Say, can you say that one more time? I didn't get it all. How many black churches do we have now and how many will we have in 2021? You don't mean in BCI, whoever asked that question. We have six churches in the BCI. Altogether we have, I think 15 black churches and that would be the same number that we will have in 2021. I want to just say to you, as we started this journey three years ago, we have worked with all of the churches. They have not been labeled a BCI church but there's not a black church in the North Texas Conference that I have not worshiped with, met with the pastor and talked with them. And I just say to you right now, I celebrate that during this three year time, we have not had one of our black churches close. And we need to just say, amen, raise your hand and just, we give God glory for that because it's the work of all of us together. And so, yes, that number will still be the same in January, we don't plan on closing black churches. What we want to do is help each church look at where they are and get stronger in the areas where they're weak. If you remember when we were there first started, Phoebe talked to, she's a member of St. Luke. She talked about, they didn't look at what they're good at. They know that. They looked at what they're weak at and that's how you remain open. That's how you learn how to make disciples and form disciples. Look at where your deficiencies are and we, and I will work with you and the coach will work with you and that's what we have done in the past and that's what we will continue to do. Can I jump in Diana? Yes, Dr. Patterson. Good evening everybody, I'm Reverend Patterson. Oh, go on. I'm Reverend Patterson from Hamilton Park United Methodist and Diana, I want to tell you as a tribute or as an evidence of how effective DCI was, we have over 10 lay people on this call right now. That shows lay engagement. That shows lay buy-in. That shows BCI was effective at Hamilton Park. So if you want some proof in the pudding, Hamilton Park is great numbers. I told my folk Diana Messers and the Bishop said get on the line and they are here. And we want to say thank you number one for selecting our church. This process has been amazing and what it taught us and how we had to review ourselves and learn so much. It has been amazing. And it's good to hear that I think you're saying you want cutting us off, you're gonna still be around, is that right? Yes, ma'am. I'm gonna be right there with you the way I've been with Hamilton Park from the beginning, because you know we were there. And while I have you on the phone right now, I would like for you to say something about the preaching cohort. Because I remember at the end you said you know what? I was not happy that you made us buy our own books. But was that time with Dr. McKenzie and Dr. Muriel and wait the work that we did, what is your response as one of the pastors? As you said earlier, preaching is essential in the black church. You have to be able to preach just the way it is. And so you are brought in Muriel and Alice McKenzie to make us go to the next level. And that included buying and reading a lot of books, preaching and having our preaching critiqued by those experts, McKenzie and Muriel and our team. And it really pushed me further in my preaching and made it a lot better. So I say again, this BCI thing works and I wanna thank you for all the effort that you all put into it, it really works. And so I'm excited about more churches getting on board and I'm also excited about you staying with us to help us get even better. And let me close by saying, if it hadn't been for BMC, BCI, the park wouldn't have been so able to jump into community engagement during COVID-19. We jumped in and started feeding, doing COVID testing because we were used to being nimble and evaluating and making ourselves available. So all that is due to what we learned from BCI. So thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Patterson for those kind words. We really appreciate the work that Hamilton Park is doing and I'm looking forward to having our meeting with your BCI team and with you. Thank you. May I say something? Yes, yes, ma'am. Thank you, Dr. Patterson. I didn't know how many late persons were on this call but I just wanna piggyback on something that Dr. Patterson did say because I am laity. For the churches that may be on here are the laity that may be on this call and if your church is not a part of BCI yet, if and when it's presented, try not to be apprehensive. I know that sometimes when new programs sit on the conference room table, it's like that's just something else they want us to do to keep us busy but that's really not it. This is more than just another program. This is actually a program that will really find out your strength and weaknesses and I say that because I know that I pose the question to the Black clergy that a part of EMCR of the smaller congregations, all these acronyms. I hadn't seen a few of them doing this pandemic because they did not have the means to have Zoom or Facebook or live stream or YouTube because they didn't know how to do. They weren't trained or didn't have the funding or just something simple. So being a part of this BCI program would help you also learn a lot of things about how to move forward because we didn't expect this pandemic in cane but I think we're doing really well communicating with one another even on Sundays during this time. So anyway. Thank you, Phoebe. One of the things I hope that you heard from Dr. Patterson and from Phoebe is when you think about doing BCI work, it's not easy. I'm not a person that just kind of sits, I love to talk, everybody knows me. When Owen and I are talking, we don't know who's gonna get off the phone first. It's just our time, we have to get off. But I would say to you, BCI is a lot of work but the payoff is more than worth it. It's more than worth it. So if you're ready to put in the work, put in the time, your church will be a stronger church in making disciples as a result of the work that you're doing involving your BCI team. Are there other questions that... We have a few more questions. Yes ma'am, thank you. Lily, I'm so glad you're here. Thank you so very much. I really appreciate all that you do and being a part of this BCI team. No problem, it's my pleasure. So we have another question. What will BCI do to cultivate, create and engage spaces where black churches in rural and non-urban spaces? Okay, what we will do in those spaces to cultivate, create and engage is the same thing we've done in the urban churches. We'll come meet with them and do the assessment, see where they're strong, see where they're weak and move forward from there. Is there another question? Yes, I'm ready. Okay, so Phoebe, if you wanna jump in here, I wanna make sure that I'm asking your question correctly. Will you look at ways to partner with larger churches with smaller churches? But then she said, she kinda jumped in and said larger churches. Yes, so let me tell you what she means. And I'm glad Dr. Patterson is on the call because what we have agreed to is the larger churches that we spent money and effort in getting them strong, they will help with leading with, they were partnering with one of our smaller churches. So once I get the larger churches really kind of back rolling, yes, they already have agreed to partner with our smaller churches. Great, okay, another question. I believe this is the last one unless somebody else wants to jump in. What can neighboring churches do to help? Example, my church at First UNC Tarot engaging with Warren Chapel in Tarot. I think that's from Peter, Peter Magnap. So yes, thank you for that question. When we're working together, we don't want to leave anyone out, Peter. And so as we talk about community involvement with Warren Chapel in Tarot, then what we can do is invite you and your team to come and join us. And I would even suggest, since I've been in that beautiful sanctuary where your church is, that we meet there, that you provide a place for us to host the meeting if we're not doing Zoom, but coming together and partnering together with your church and with that church, the black church in Tarot will be something that I would look forward to helping to coordinate. And once I get the two of you together and you're doing community work, you will just continue to do that work as Dr. Patterson mentioned early. One of the things that they wanted to get stronger at is being involved in the community. So when COVID hit, they were ready. They jumped right in, they were equipped. They didn't need any get ready time. They hit the ground rolling. And if you watched her on Facebook, you would see they did something every day. They went from the food to the, given the test for the COVID, then doing backpacks. So community involvement is very important. And Peter, I would say to you that just as the black community is centered around that church, we would invite you to be a part of that because Terrell is a community where everybody can have the same mission field that they're trying to reach. So you and I are gonna be talking about some other things related to coaching anyway, and we will have that conversation with you then. Okay, we have one more question. Yes ma'am. Based on the BCI data, what was the number one strength and the numeric weakness within the black church? Okay. You have 10 seconds to answer. So let me see if I can answer that. And the person that gave that question, I don't want you to think that I'm being evasive or not answering it, but let me just answer that and just so that you will know that it's not an answer. BCI is a prescriptive program. It's not a cookie cutter program. We started with a cookie cutter program and we became prescriptive right away. The number one strengths are based on that congregation. So one of the number one weaknesses, I would say, for Hamilton Park was they wanted to be more involved in the community. And so they worked on that and they got involved, as Dr. Patterson said, they were ready when COVID hit. The number one weakness for another church would be something else. So it's not a number one strength or number one weakness for all of the churches because we don't do it by all of the churches. We do it congregation by congregation because it's a prescriptive program. What St. Luke has is their number one strength and number one weakness is completely different than the number one strength and the number one weakness as the village. Even though St. Luke birthed the village, you would think that they would have the same, but it's different. So every congregate, and that's what causes this work to not be competitive or anything leading in that direction. It's prescriptive for that congregation. Where you're strong, we celebrate that. And where you're weak, we help you with those weaknesses and move ahead. So that's what I'm saying. There's not a number one strength or a number one weakness for all of the churches because the work is prescriptive. I believe those are all the questions in the chat unless anybody else wants to unmute and ask any other questions. Yes, Diana. Yes, sir. So this is Mike McKee. So I just wanna emphasize something you said there. And that is, is that for a number of years and as long as I've been in ministry over, which is a few decades and nobody needs to make a comment on that. But what I wanna say is that basically everything's been sort of programmatic. Same thing for everybody. And what's good about this is the fact it takes every each church's context in the, and so I think this has the potential to do more good than any number of seminars that people could go to. I mean, this is hands on work. And it's, as you said, it's prescriptive to particular congregations given their work. Thank you, Bishop. I would say thank you for creating this position and supporting BCI in every arena. One of the things, the reason for that is because a lot of churches, not just black churches, we look at who has the number one, how many are in attendance? How many Sunday school classes? How many this and that's not how you make disciples. You make disciples based on what's happening in your local congregation and not in comparison to what's happening in some other congregation. So even churches, that's not a part of the Black Church Initiative as we grow in this work and we want to share that particular program, the assessment, Phoebe, her whole theme was around that assessment. Then each church in the North Texas Conference can see where you are strong and not compare you to someone else. But it's about making disciples and we're all on the same team. And I think what Peter McNabb suggested in him partnering with Warren Chapel, that's a great thing to do for us to work together to make disciples in that. I remember when I came to worship with you, Pastor McNabb, Phoebe came with me and we were at Warren Chapel and we were at your church on that same Sunday. So when we think about the work of making disciples for Jesus Christ, I want you to know this. Jesus cares about Black lives. We shouldn't have to say Black lives matter. We shouldn't have to say all lives matter. When we think about the church, every church should have as their focus making disciples. We can do it with new spaces and new places, which means that you're going somewhere where the people that don't go to church go. You know where they are, we've talked. I've had lots of conversations with many of you with new faces, new places. You're not stealing members. There are enough people that's unchurched all around where you are. What we want to end up with is strong communities. That is very important in the Black church because the people that don't even go, they claim St. Luke. They may have watched Zen homes one time. Oh, you know, Dr. Holmes said, this is what we need to do with voter suppression. This is what we need to do. And so people in the Black community, they look at the Black church to see what are they saying about all of the stuff that's going on and all of you will agree there's enough stuff going on right now that we need to be about our father's business. Too many Black men and Black women are being killed right in broad daylight. We need to do something about that. And I think coming together as a church would be a good beginning. But it's this work that has anything to do with competition. We don't compare. We do it within our own home. And we don't have to go to the building to do it. So. A question? Go ahead. We have two more questions. We have two more questions. Will BCI program work with the NTC team slash committee on dismantling racism? I would say yes, I'm on that team. And so anything that we can do to be a part of that, we will continue to do that. But I serve on that team. And I will add also that it is working together. It is working collaboration, but there's also distinct work that BCI does. The work of dismantling racism is of utmost importance. But as I shared with many people, if we become a less racist denomination, but wider, we will not have been faithful. We must continue to reach our communities of color. We need to better reflect our North Texas conference mission field while we are doing the work of dismantling racism. I thank you, Owen, for saying that. And I would just like to add one last piece to that. I hope that moving forward as the cabinet meets, there's an agenda item on there. Each time they meet, whether it's about appointments, what is the state of the black church? How's the black church doing? We don't want to wait until at the end of three years of a new initiative and say, how did we do? We have been working on this really hard. Hopefully you can see that. There's been a lot of hard work done. And I want you to know step by step that this got done. It didn't get done in one year. It didn't get done at one moment. But we want all of the people to be aware of what's going on in our black churches. No matter what we do with racism and making white folks feel like, they're anti-racist and all of that. That's not what happens to the black church. And I would say for my black brothers and sisters that's on this call, we would say, we're tired. We're tired right now. And we don't want to continue to teach, but we do want to do the work of making disciples. So I know that our time is just about up. And before I ask our district superintendent or the Metro district to close us in prayer, I want to make sure that all of the comments have been made, Mr. White-Harry. I think you had one comment that you wanted, you won't have anything that you want to say before we have the last question. Thank you, real masters. I did put my question in the chat box and they are going to get back to me with that question with some of the specifics. So thank you, I did get that answers on its way. Thank you so much for remembering. It also relates to James Miner's question about the specific goals for BCIN 2021. When the announcement for the retirement of Reverend Masters came in, my goal was to ensure that the ball that was started kept rolling. We had these assessments that have been done. There's a lot of implementation that has yet to take place from those assessments. And of course, the assessments could have been done and these reports could have been put on a shelf and they would not be the first thousand plus dollar reports that sat on a United Method of Shelf. But we want to ensure that the work is being done to continue the work that has been started and doing the implementation of those. We also know that we are navigating into a new season in Christianity, in church in the United States. And so what our goal specific goals are getting to James Miner's questions as well as Dwight Harry's question is we are in the process of forming what BCI is going to look like in 2021. We've already had one Zoom call with the six pastors of the six churches. I was talking to Joshua Manning last night about developing a conversation and continuing this conversation and starting to form that which will both be budgetary as well as strategic on how we continue to invest in the black church in 2021. And so that work is while the work is continuing of the work that started also navigating into this new world that we find ourselves in and what is going to be the best use of our resources both financially as well as personnel to address that for 2021 will be that work is starting will be continuing. So thank you, thank you. Thank you on one of the things that on had mentioned earlier is the BCI work. I've worked really closely with Andy Lewis during this time and he came on board the same time on and I did. And we've worked with Marty first and now Cami with leadership development. So this is not something that's just, you know, in a little box. This work covers all the parameters and just covers all the annual conference and I'm thankful for that. So thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate your presence. And if there are any questions we need to still get answered, I'll get back with you. Let me give you my email address so that you will be able to continue to reach me because I'm not using the North Texas conference email address, but I am definitely receiving email and responding to email. And it's dianadina.masters, M-A-S-T-E-R-S at gmail.com. dianadina.masters at gmail.com. I look forward to getting together with all of you. Thank you for coming and thank you for your work. I would invite Deborah Hopps-Mason to close us in prayer. In the spirit of how we opened this meeting, I want to read some names. Mount Zion, Warren Chapel, Camp Wisdom, Community, Glen Oaks, Hamilton Park, Highland Hills, St. Luke Community, St. Paul, Warren, Church of the Disciple, the Village, Jubilee, God's Kingdom, First Lancaster. Also want to name that Marcus Jones is alone in the Northwest District and that there are three friends in the North Central District, Rick Hawkins, Edlin Cowley and Cheryl Jones. Also, there are five African fellowships which are not part of BCI, but it sure seems like a way that we are being the Black Church, Oasis, All Saints Zimbabwe Fellowship at Richardson, Ebenezer Fellowship at First Mesquite, part of Africa at Lovers Lane and the Zimbabwe Fellowship at Lovers Lane. So there are actually 20 gathered bodies every week in addition to the ones that are already churches, they are reaching people from many, many countries. So just I'm thankful for all of these churches and for the witness that they already are but the witness that by God's grace through strengthening they can continue to become. So let's pray. Almighty God, lover of our souls, giver of all gifts, one who goes before us in all things, we are thankful this night that you have made each one of us in your image, your beloved precious image. May we Lord see you in one another, love you in one another, serve you in one another. May we be moved by the anger right now in our world to do something and not just continue to have conversation. We do pray Lord that we who need to look at our privilege will look at it and we'll dismantle that. And the racism that's mixed in with that and that we won't ask our friends to be further harmed having to help us learn what by your grace we should have learned a long, long, long time ago. So forgive us, strengthen us, guide us and bind us together Lord, bind us together, bind us together in your love and in your grace and for your glory. For it's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for coming. I hope you have a blessed evening. Bye-bye.