 Good morning. Bishop McKay and members of the annual conference. Bishop McKay called a task force together composed of Reverend Richie Butler, pastor of St. Luke Community United Methodist Church, Reverend Edlin Cowley, the incoming district superintendent of the Mestor District and myself, led by Mr. Greg Campbell, who was our consultant, to look at the state of the Black Church, Black United Methodist Church, not only in the connection, but to look at the state of the Black United Methodist Church, particularly in the North Texas Conference. As we begin a report, the grasp and understanding of the Black United Methodist Church. It was in 1619, when enslaved blacks from the African diaspora were first brought to the shores in America. And as these blacks of the African diaspora came to America, they brought with them their religion, mostly Christianity, some of it Islamic, and not only did they bring their religion with them, but they also brought practices and beliefs that were unique to the continent of Africa. Initially, they were, they were forbidden to practice their faith as they had practiced it in the motherland on the continent of Africa. Then they were reintroduced to Christianity, but this time they were reintroduced, what a false science of hermeneutics and a false and an abusive and misuse of the exegesis of scripture, so that they could not practice their faith, their religion, with dignity and sacredness as free men and women. But these clever men and women quickly reinterpreted the faith to make it valuable to themselves and faithful to God. And as Henry Gates and others have discussed, they created the invisible church or the invisible institution, a church without a building. And there they would go down by the riverside or the cotton fields or in their huts or wherever they were to practice their faith to give dignity and sacredness to themselves and to encourage and give hope to each other. And out of this invisible institution grew the black church in America. And this black church led this people then enslaved and later to freedom and whatever significant movement took place in the community or in the nation. And so the black church along with the black pastor led in the development of black communities, black schools and universities, black businesses, insurance companies, and also leading the people to a sense of liberation, salvation, transformation and self assurance. And this black church was not only viable and vibrant and necessary in America, but it was also viable and vibrant in the history of the United Methodist Church dating back to the Christmas Conference at Lovely Lane United Methodist Church. In more recent years, the black church has begun to dwindle or deteriorate as many of our churches in mainland Protestantism and in the United Methodist Church. And because our numbers are smaller, it is more detrimental to us. And so Bishop McKay out of his concern and his commitment to turn this around, called together a task force led by consultant Mr. Greg Campbell to get an accurate analysis and then come up with a compelling vision and strategy for the renewal of the black church in the North Texas Conference. It isn't important to also know that this study is and and this outcome is not just for the black constituents, but it is for all of the North Texas Conference. So our black members are not the only stakeholders, but all of us are stakeholders in this renewal of this vibrant institution, the black church in our connection. Richie Butler will come now Reverend Richie Butler will come and introduce our consultant. Good morning, Richie Butler senior pastor of St. Luke Community United Methodist Church have the privilege of introducing our consultant. And reason I want to take this moment is because I think the person who provides the analysis does the deep digging. You need to have an understanding who that person is and their pedigree and not just academics, scholarly, their experience, but also just who they are. And so personally, anything that I've learned in the business world, I owe to this gentleman. So he's helped to shape me professionally. Cornell Harvard MBA. So he has the right academic cutiments to to boot, but also one of our leading strategies in this in this community. North Texas around the country has worked in corporation corporate America has provided strategy from that stance point cities. He works in the venture capital world as well as private equity has raised fun in Southern Dallas called the North Texas Opportunity Fund, which was innovative and revolutionary in bringing forth a whole model for how we bring dollars into into the community. And so we tasked him to come and help us think through from a very different frame of reference, not the church reference, but looking at things from a very holistic approach. He also serves on the board of Methodist Hospital System and also in the Community Foundation Board of Texas. So he is rooted and grounded in this in this community. So he's not getting on a plane going back to Chicago, New York after the work is done. He's here and will be in the midst of helping us frame not just framing this but moving this forward. And the last thing I'll say he is he's my member. He's a member of St. Louis Community UMC. So at this time, I want to introduce Gray Campbell. Good morning. It's a great pleasure to be with you this morning. And I am very, very thankful to the Bishop for allowing me to take on this this project. It's a credit to the leadership of the North Texas Conference to be led by a Bishop that recognizes that we are stronger together, that we are all stakeholders in this in the future of all of our churches, and that by having each of our churches to be strong, we are stronger as a unit. I want to start with the statement of purpose of this project. The North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church seeks to create the dynamics that will allow the Black United Methodist churches in Dallas to thrive in worship, membership, governance, community outreach, stewardship, and financial self-sufficiency. The North Texas Conference wants to develop a comprehensive set of strategies, tactics, and resource requirements that can enhance the Black churches in Dallas, and that can be embraced by all stakeholders in the conference. And I want to repeat that last sentence again. We want to make sure that this is something that can be embraced by all stakeholders in the conference, not the Black churches, not the White churches, but the conference in total. This was a project that was envisioned in two parts. The first phase is about visioning strategy, which we have completed and we're presenting the results of to you in summary. And the second phase, which involves the implementation, we will look at the resources and tactics and implementation. I want to outline the 11 churches that were the Dallas Black churches that were part of this study. And I am very, very happy to say that we had tremendous cooperation from the these 11 churches and their pastors and senior lady. We conducted a number of interviews and surveys, and we got a tremendous amount of feedback and support from each of these churches. And I can say that the Black churches are actually hungry for the work that we're doing. I want to give a special thanks to our task force, Reverend Henderson, Reverend Butler, and Reverend Cowley for their tireless support of this project. We met regularly every Monday during the course of these three or four months. We had very few absences during that time period, if you know anything about pastors, to get everybody to commit to a regular meeting to a regular meeting on a Monday after they have their full sermons on Sunday and the other activities that they're involved in in their pastoral care is a really a strong miracle. In addition to that, we were guided in our work through an advisory group that provide us with strategic input. This group consisted of clergy and laity, and we conducted focus groups. We had one-on-one conversations with this group, and they provided us with hours and hours and hours of feedback. Just to give you a sense of the work that was actually accomplished during this work plan. In our first phase, we spent the first couple of weeks just diving into the data around these Black churches that exist within the North Texas Conference, and then looking at the status of Black churches across the United States in third-party data. A lot of information coming out from Pew and other third-party sources that we delved into and correlated with what was happening here in the conference. Then to gain insights about these specific churches, we conducted pastor surveys, and these were 18-question surveys that we sent out to our individual pastors who took the time and energy to truthfully respond to these surveys and share that information back with us. These were not multiple-choice questions. These were outside, you know, basically open-ended questions, but we asked questions about the status of their churches, their vision, their support that they're getting from laity, the big issues that they are facing, how they're engaging in their communities, and we brought that information back, and then we then had follow-ups, interviews with these senior pastors to get a sense of deeper dive into the information they were sharing with us and to get into issues that we may not have had full revelation on through the surveys. We followed this up then with a series of focus groups with our advisory group. That led to, in addition to that, additional conversations with individuals who were part of that advisory group who were full with further input that couldn't come across in the focus groups, so we conducted even additional one-on-one conversations. We captured that information into a draft report which was shared with the cabinet and has been shared in this past week with both Black clergy and Black laity to get their additional feedback and reactions to the recommendations that we're making, and finally, we're sharing with you today the results of our work. I want to say that a lot of the work that we conducted during this process was guided by the book that was published by Henry Lewis Gates that fortunately came out just at the beginning when we were starting this work and has served as a backdrop, a context, an understanding for the work that we were doing. If you have not read this book, I urge everyone in the conference to have an opportunity to read this book, and if you have not a person that wants to get engaged with the book, PBS has done a two-part documentary that is a fabulous contribution to the history and the understanding of the Black church. So I'm now going to start with a couple of the challenges that we found as we were going through this process that involved our Black churches, and again, we're focusing on the Black churches, the 11 Black churches in Dallas, but this could apply to the Black churches throughout the conference, and quite frankly, if we're honest Bishop, this could apply to the churches in the conference because many of the issues that we saw apply to every church, every church is facing some of these same attributes, which is why I think it's so important that we're talking today and aiding these Black churches, but also looking reflectively at the churches in the conference and what we can do. So one of the first things that we recognize is that the Black United Methodist churches has in many instances forsaken its prophetic role and its voice in the community. As we spoke to laity and even clergy, there is a sense that the Black churches are sitting on the sidelines, they're inwardly focused, and they're following not leading. This is a big contrast as Henry Louis Gates will point out to those who read his book, that is not the history of the Black church. The Black church has traditionally been the hub of the community. It has been the place where social movements have started, have been led. It's the place where people went to be fed, to be educated, to receive health care, to receive financial support. This was the place where people got their spiritual development and their human subsistency. So this was a contrast and this is something that we're hearing over and over again that the church has left this role. We have found that even though the United Methodist church, the Methodist church in particular, has been a central player in the development of African American people, Black people from enslavement to their freedom. We've been ineffective in our storytelling. So many young people don't recognize the importance of the Methodist church historically in the role that it has played in abolition, in freeing slaves, in educating, and acting as hospitals, as acting as a place of school development, of helping to build houses, all those things that are historically part of the role of the Methodist church. And then one of the other things that we found, which was very, very critical, that points to the relevance and the role of the church, is that we found that in many instances that we are under-investing in our children and youth ministries. That has historically been the pathway for growing churches and we found in many of these churches, the youth and children's ministry either didn't exist or was woefully underfunded. A second challenge that we encountered was that the Black churches are facing some of the same headwinds of other churches. Not surprisingly, declining membership, a loss of relevance as viewed by their congregations, limited financial resources, and leadership skill gaps. And we're going to come back to that particular area because it is something that was highlighted in our study and something that needs and deserves a full attention. We are also finding that many of the Black United Methodist churches are facing a cultural gap with young people. Young members are finding their spiritual development, their relevance, and leadership opportunities outside of the church. Again, this is in contrast to the role that the Black church has played. They're finding it instead in social justice movements, in social media, and in some of the mega churches. They are not buying into the idea of membership. This is the younger people. They think that we should be measuring their engagement by how they engage in the work that's happening at the church in efforts to fulfill people's personal needs and outside of the church in social movements, in feeding programs, in housing programs, in homeless programs, in education programs, as opposed to looking solely at membership. And then there seems to be a disconnect between the message form and the platforms that our youth and young adults are using and those that are being used by our Black churches. Many of our Black United Methodist churches feel ill-prepared for the issues facing the church and their community. I'll just say this was a white awakening point for me in this work because what we heard from many pastors was that they didn't feel that seminary prepared them. They didn't feel that their initial appointments prepared them for the challenges that they're facing in leading churches and their community today. One of the things that we found, and this was through survey and through interviews, is that very often these churches did not have a clear articulated vision. Where there is no vision, there cannot be any progress. And we found many of these churches did not have a clear articulated vision. There was limited business and entrepreneurial skills in these churches and there were very few, with those that are having declining membership, very few resources for these pastors to turn to to get some of those skill sets and get some of that support. From some of the laity, we got feelings that there was a lack of passion and many felt unprepared for church leadership. This is what we were getting back from some of the pastors. The laity was saying we're not feeling the passion from our leader and many of our leaders were saying they feel unprepared for the position that they've been placed in church leadership. And one of the things that we concluded was that as we spoke in depth to many of the pastors, that some of the clergy were in a position of managing and maintaining as opposed to driving and leading and trying to grow their church. They were essentially waiting for their next appointment. One of the other elements that was very visible to us is that many of our Black United Methodist churches have a comparative inferior product. They're behind in branding in social media and in production quality for their Sunday services. They have limited digital presence. They're unaware right now that the playing field has now moved from the local churches down the block to a national playing field. I can tell you right now that one of the churches that we engaged with was talking very proudly of the fact that they have gained 23 members from Chicago. I want to say that again. They gained 23 members from Chicago because of their digital program. And those members are paying tides and gifts to the church. So many of our churches are not aware that they are competing now because of the online services because of the digital programs. They're now competing across the United States. And if they're not competing effectively in that realm, they will see a continual diminishing of their membership. And there is some sense that adherence to United Methodist churches practices can sometimes diminish key elements of the Black church experience. And this is one of those areas that we have, we've had a lot of discussion about. A lot of that was led by Reverend Henderson in our communication to understand those practices that are pulling people away from their traditional way of feeling how church is supposed to operate. Several of our Black churches are under resource and many feel overburdened by the conference apportionments. They lack staff and staffing options. They don't have people that can come out of their congregations to fill in holes in their staffing. They have much delayed and deferred maintenance and CAPEX issues. And unfortunately, many of these churches find themselves in a survival mode as opposed to growing and thriving. When you're in a survival mode, it's very hard to figure out how you're going to grow, how you're going to add ministry. If you're trying to figure out how we're going to deal with a leaking roof, a parking lot that is not doing well with weeds and grass coming out of them, where there are issues about air conditioning and other issues in the church. It's very hard to focus in on delivering effective Bible study, effective word in the church. There was a lot of feedback that we received about the pastorial appointment process that may be negatively impacting Black United Methodist churches. Many of our churches, many of our laity talk to us about the turnover in pastorial appointments that could be limiting the implementation of visions. So if you could imagine someone who's a church that may have had five or six pastors in the last eight or 10 years, there's a very limited amount of time to one form of vision and to implement that vision. And they point to the fact that many of the laity are saying that, hey, we know that this person's coming in, but we don't expect them to be with us in a very long period of time. So we're not really going to put forth that much effort. And we understood that particularly from some of the laity leadership, they feel that there have been ineffective leaders that have been appointed, and that may contribute to both the membership and financial declines. And then finally, there is a cluster of small Black United Methodist churches that, unfortunately, I don't believe, can survive as currently structured. We have a couple of those churches that are really at the end of their string in terms of being able to survive. They have put up a very, very good fight. They have used and managed the resources that they've had, but it's coming to a time point where they cannot effectively minister to their membership or to their communities. They tend to be competing in very narrow markets. They're very small and aging congregations, and some of these congregations are averaging 70, 72 plus. And there is not an effort or an ability to bring in younger people into those congregations. They find that their solvency and self-sufficiency is really out of reach. The numbers don't work. I'm a management consultant. I spend a lot of time in venture capital, so I look at numbers and I project whether businesses and organizations are going to survive. And in these cases, we have a number of churches where the numbers just don't work. We can pray for them, but the numbers still are not going to work. And they're unable to minister to the community and to younger people. So those were the key challenges we found in our work. And I want to talk to you a little bit about some of our inspiration and the direction that we hope of a model moving forward. That inspiration is built around reimagining the Black United Methodist churches through vision, through leadership and relevance in the community. I know our time is short, so I'm going to try and go through these rather quickly. Moving forward, we believe that the vision for the church has to be built around regaining its prophetic voice, both within the building and externally within the community. That means engagement with spiritual development inside the house of God and in the community leading the needs of the people. We think that it has to be value placed on both the spiritual development and community engagement. Young people need to be able to connect to a message that impacts their lives through online and social media platforms. We're talking about creating digital ministries in addition to the ministry that happens within the church. Church leadership needs to embrace the next generation. The time period for all the leadership being my age or older has passed. Younger people need to come in and take our places. We need to be able to leverage the combined resources of smaller churches to enhance their ministry. And attendance and engagement need to become the new measures of church success as opposed to solely just membership. Presence and engagement in our social activities, both in the church and outside the church, have to be credited. And we have to recognize that church growth needs to be encouraged both through in-person attendance and new digital congregation. We are in a time period where many things are happening. Our lives are changed in how we engaged online and digitally. And that now incorporates the church. Again, in terms of leadership, we're looking to help those that are now feeling overwhelmed in their church assignments by providing both business and strategic planning consulting services. That's one of our key recommendations. We're looking to reassess the appointment criteria to emphasize both capability and capacity to address the black church's particular needs and to create stable leadership in these churches, which is the only way we're going to be able to form a vision and realize that vision. And then we're also asking that the bishop consider creating a senior mentor position at the conference to provide guidance in church building, spiritual development, and community outreach for these black churches. In terms of relevance, we're looking forward to a time period where churches can expand their community engagement as an individual church, but also in partnership with community organizations. That could be accomplished through the formation of 501c3 organizations within some of these churches or community development corporations, which also gives us the opportunity to expand our financing of these of this work beyond the monies that are collected and appealed to be able to seek grants from foundations and other community organizations and corporations. We need to enhance the product that these churches are offering. And we see that being done in two ways. To create a shared professional production studio that could be centrally located and that all of these pastors can have an opportunity to produce their Sunday worship service from this production studio and to offer these pastors the opportunity for support in creating social media presence and activities. We're calling upon these churches to invest in children and youth ministries and encouraging the rebranding of the church to build an audience, as you see is happening now at Hamilton Park, the village, and at St. Luke, I dare say. The final thing that we had in our recommendation was to develop a small church program that incorporates multiple tools, shared services, whether they be administrative maintenance or ministries, worship ministries, children's ministries, dual and shared appointments, branching with with larger churches, and in some instances where it is necessary, mergers where the proceeds, if there are any, could benefit the other existing and remaining black churches. This was a, for me, a work of love. I felt privileged to have the opportunity to engage in this work. It's something that I hope will be embraced by the conference and that we will look forward to the actual implementation by the conference moving forward. And again, I want to emphasize this is not about the black churches alone. This is about the conference because we are all stakeholders. Thank you very much. Dr. Henderson's introduction and Mr. Campbell's report frame the stored history, the daunting challenges and the rich opportunities before the African American churches and the Dallas area of our conference. The words cause me to reflect on the words of Deuteronomy chapter two verses one through three, which read, we journeyed back into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea as the Lord has told me and skirted Mount Sierre for many days. Then the Lord said to me, you have been skirting this hill country long enough, head north. In verse three, I believe the writer of Deuteronomy speaks into the space created by the report we have heard this morning. In the past year and a half, our conference in a broad sense and our African American churches in particular have skirted the hill country. We have skirted the hill country as we have faced the monumental struggle of doing ministry in the time of COVID. We have skirted the hill country as we have been rocked by the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others. These deaths and the aftermath of them birthed a generational conversation about the issues of race, class and justice in America's past, present and future. And thanks to the work that our bishop, Mike McKee, envisioned and authorized, we are engaging these issues in ways that have never been done in the history of the North Texas conference. Our brothers and sisters in the African American churches have skirted the hill country as they have done their level best to navigate offering quality online worship and create a community. Many of our churches were also impacted by the storms in February. And now in a time when many churches are returning to in-person worship, some of these churches are displaced from their sanctuaries, again looking for innovative solutions to worship and create community in the midst of unprecedented obstacles. In verse three, I find it comforting that that verse doesn't end with skirting. It ends with an encouragement and invitation and a command to head north. As we have received this morning's report, I believe our best response to it is to begin our northbound journey by developing a clear and compelling vision with defined action steps in response to what we have heard. I remember being at a funeral where our former NTC bishop, Bill Olden, shared an inspiring and encouraging reflection. Bishop Olden, after giving a compassionate and graceful look into the eyes of the grieving family, resolutely said, there is no sunset in human history that has not been followed by a sunrise. Perhaps you can hear the sunset in the report we received this morning. Phoebe Hutchins, the chair of our Black Methodist for Church Renewal for our conference, and Joshua Manning, the president of our African American Clergy Fellowship, and the membership of both of those organizations have heard the report that you heard this morning prior to this annual conference. Rather than being disappointed or depressed, I am persuaded that Bishop Olden's words ring true today. The sun that will break on the horizon and the joy that will come in the morning are on the way to the African American churches of the North Texas Conference. As we face the rising sun of the new day that is beginning in these churches, we are called to head north with a sunrise perspective as we take steps toward expanding the ministry of Almighty God as it manifests itself through the work of the African American churches of the North Texas Conference. This is not the ending, this is just the beginning. 30 seconds. In terms of that vision or beginning, just wanted to outline an idea or concept or even casting something for us to think about specifically with an African American community here in North Texas Conference. And that is we had the great Henry Lewis Gates produce that great book on the Black Church, PBS offered up a series. And so at St. Luke, my members don't, they know that I always throw something out there. So we're throwing this out and we're going to make a reality and want the conference to come along with us. And that is that we want to bring Henry Lewis Gates to have a conversation if it's 2022 about the Black Church, his work and how that ties into where we're headed into the future because truly as Ellen has already outlined that the best is yet to come. And we're going to be part of making the best of reality. Thank you Bishop for your leadership.