I am a preacher who LOVES preaching. I love all preaching. But I really love the Black preaching tradition. I am the person who will binge watch five to seven full, 45+ minute sermons back to back the same way people binge watch Netflix series and movies. I love the whoop, the holler, the call & response, and the dance that happens between the preacher and the people in the pews when the Good News is being communicated.

But recently, I was listening to a young preacher for the first time and something captured my ear. The young preacher was saying all the “right things.” Quoting the right scholars. Dropping the appropriate catchphrases that we heard our foremothers and forefathers say, the kind of things that, in fact, made many of us fall in love with preaching.

And that’s not wrong… right? We all do that.

If you’ve ever listened to me preach, then you’ve likely heard me quote the late Marvin Gaye: “It makes me wanna holla, throw up both hands.” I got that from my first preaching mentor and father in ministry, Dr. Eugene L. Gibson Jr. That song is from the 70s. Though lyrically still applicable to our times, do people listening to preaching today, especially folks ages 16 to 29, really relate to that reference? And if not, why do I still rely on it?

Maybe the lesson I learned from Dr. Gibson was not simply to use the same reference he used. Maybe the lesson was to understand how he used something familiar from the culture to help people hear what he was trying to say. That is what the scholars call a “rhetorical device.” And maybe part of the work of preaching in every generation is learning how those devices work, then finding the language, songs, stories, images, and references that speak to the people actually sitting in front of us.

Instead, sometimes we repeat the same phrases over and over again because we have heard them work before. And that’s how it can be possible for a sermon to have all the pieces and still… not connect. And not truly move the listener to want to live better, or even make us want to believe better.

I continued to listen. The young preacher began to close the sermon in traditional Black Baptist fashion. If you know Black preaching, you know what I mean by “closing.” The cadence shifted. The intensity increased. The preacher came alive. Suddenly there was passion. There was urgency. There was something in the preacher’s voice that had been missing for most of the sermon.

And as I listened, I realized what had captured my ear in the first place. I could hear what this preacher had heard other preachers say. But I could not hear what this preacher had come to believe. Where was the conviction throughout the entire sermon?

The close was solid. Passionate. All the notes were landing. The people were responding. But… I still couldn’t discern what this preacher was trying to tell me they believed, and why I, too, should believe it and respond in celebration the way the preacher was now inviting me to. I felt confused. I heard the dinner bell signaling that it was time to come eat. But when I got to the table, there was no food on the plate. And I have not been able to leave that feeling alone.

Conviction.

I know when I hear it. Or at least, I thought I did. The more I have tried to write about conviction in preaching, the more difficult it has become to define. Conviction is not passion. It cannot be, because I have heard passionate preaching that did not convince me that the preacher believed what they were saying. It is not volume, because some of the most convicted preaching I have heard never rose above a whisper. It is not confidence, charisma, or even the ability to move a room.

And apparently, it is not celebration either.

And I find that fascinating because of what I’ve learned from the work of Dr. Frank A. Thomas. In “They Like to Never Quit Praisin’ God: The Role of Celebration in Preaching”, Thomas describes celebration as “the joyful and ecstatic reinforcement of the truth already taught and delivered in the main body of the sermon.”

The key word in that statement is reinforcement. Celebration, then, is not simply the emotional climax we sometimes associate with “closing” a sermon. The close is reinforcing something. Something has already been proclaimed about God, grace, liberation, hope, or possibility that now gives us reason to celebrate.

Which brings me back to the preacher I heard. The celebration was there, but the rhetorical device that I argue was missing, and that I was still listening for in the end was the conviction that got us to the celebration. And that has caused me to ask a question I did not expect to spend this much time thinking about: What does it actually mean to preach with conviction? Have we ever explicitly discussed or studied conviction as a rhetorical device in sacred rhetoric?

At first, I thought this would be one article. I thought I would tell you about a sermon I heard, make an observation about something I am noticing in preaching, offer a definition of conviction, say something smart about the future of Black preaching, and wrap this thing up. Then I started writing, and the more I wrote, the more questions I had.

Is conviction something the preacher possesses before sermon preparation begins, or is it something formed in the wrestling with the text? Does conviction require certainty? What happens when I am preaching something I am still struggling to believe myself? Can you preach faithfully without having personally experienced what you are proclaiming? What is the relationship between conviction and formation/discipleship? Can conviction be taught? Can it be imitated?

And in an age when preachers have unprecedented access to sermons, clips, manuscripts, language, research, and now artificial intelligence, how do we make sure we are not simply becoming better at producing the sound of preaching without undergoing whatever process forms the conviction beneath it?

See my problem? I started trying to write an article. But it seems like I’ve stumbled across something much deeper.

So I am not going to force a definition yet. For now, I know this much: conviction has a sound, but it does not have one sound. I know I can hear passion without hearing conviction. I know celebration can happen in a room without convincing me that the preacher has been personally claimed by what they are proclaiming. And I know there is a difference between hearing what a preacher has learned to say and hearing what a preacher has come to believe. And I know… Conviction is necessary for preaching.

Until next time… I’ll keep “wrestling with ideas…” as Dr. Thomas often says.

People are not joining your church because they are looking for somewhere to work and serve. They are joining because they are looking for a community to grow in their relationship with God. They are looking for somewhere to belong. Somewhere to wrestle with their faith, learn Scripture, ask questions, build relationships, raise their families, discover who they are becoming, and walk alongside other people who are trying to follow Jesus too.

Yet somewhere along the way, I fear that many of our churches have confused getting people involved with making disciples.

A person joins the church, and almost immediately we want to know where they are going to serve. Can you sing? Join the choir. Do you work with children? Children’s Ministry needs help. Are you good with technology? We need you in Media Ministry. Can you greet? Usher? Cook? Drive? Teach? Organize?

We call it getting connected. But I have started wondering whether some of what we call connection is really… recruitment.

I am a daughter of the Black Church. I was raised in the traditional Black Baptist Church, accepted my call to preach as a teenager, and for more than a decade have served in pastoral staff roles. I love this tradition. It formed me, gave language to my faith, and gave me room for my calling. So this is not an outsider’s critique, and it is not an argument against service. The Black Church as we know it would not exist without generations of Black people who freely gave their time, gifts, and labor to build institutions that served our communities when no one else would.

I am asking a different question.

After a lifetime in the Black Church, I have begun to wonder whether we have developed what I call a “free labor mentality” around church membership, particularly among those of us entrusted with pastoral leadership. It is the assumption that becoming a member should almost immediately translate into working for the church. Join the church. Find a ministry. Get involved. Start serving.

Over the years, I have watched membership become the beginning of a pipeline to free labor. Before long, the person who came looking for a community has become another set of hands helping us maintain the institution. And I wonder if some people are not rejecting church because they are unwilling to commit, but because they can see that we only want their hands and not their hearts. We are so upfront with our desire to use people before we have even learned their names, much less their stories. We know what ministry needs another volunteer before we know what brought them through our doors.

And people can feel that.

This matters especially as we think about Black Millennials and Gen Z. A 2020 State of the Black Church study led by Rev. Dr. Brianna K. Parker found that the percentage of Black adults who considered active church involvement desirable had declined from 90 percent in 1996 to 74 percent, with younger generations less likely than Boomers to describe it as “very desirable.” I do not read that and conclude that younger Black adults are lazy or unwilling to serve. I think it invites a better question: what does meaningful involvement actually mean to them, and what kind of church are we inviting them to become involved in? Barna’s research offers a clue — 57 percent of both Gen Z and Millennial Christians chose strong relationships with other Christians over a thought-provoking sermon when asked which mattered more. They are telling us something. They want God. They want relationships. They want formation. And sometimes we hand them a volunteer application, or rehearsal schedule instead.

To be fair, I understand how we got here. A pastor may have fifteen ministries, a shrinking volunteer pool, aging leaders, and members complaining that “nobody wants to work anymore.” So when three new families join, the pastor sees possibility. I understand that instinct. But in our desperation to meet the needs of the institution, we can begin using people for our own needs before rightly tending to their souls or discerning why God sent them to us in the first place. Before asking where someone can serve, we should be asking why God has entrusted this person to our care. What do they need in this season? What is God forming in them? What wounds need tending?

And yes, our ancestors worked in church, and they worked hard. But their service existed within a much larger ecosystem of belonging and formation — Sunday School, Baptist Training Union, missionary societies, Christian education, and denominational life did more than give people work to do. Nannie Helen Burroughs understood this when she built more than a movement of Black Baptist women who served; she built a school that formed them. There was labor, yes. But there was also cultivation.

I wonder if we have inherited the expectation of service while allowing too much of the ecosystem that sustained it to disappear. If we dismantle the old formation ecosystem, something has to replace it. Small groups. Discipleship cohorts. Intergenerational relationships. Places where people can sit across from other Christians and be known beyond what they contribute on Sunday morning.

Because service was never supposed to replace discipleship. A person can sing in the choir for twenty years and never be deeply discipled. A person can usher every Sunday and remain spiritually isolated. Being useful to a church is not the same thing as being formed by one. We can count who showed up to rehearsal and who volunteered Saturday morning. It is much harder to measure whether somebody is learning to forgive, developing a prayer life, or becoming more like Jesus. Yet those are the questions discipleship requires us to ask.

Maybe that is part of the answer to the volunteer problem. Not another recruitment campaign or ministry fair.

Cultivation.

I argue the Black Church is guilty of trying to harvest from people we haven’t first cultivated. We have churches worried about the shortage of fruit while neglecting the work of tending the soil. But you cannot demand fruit from soil you have neglected.

If we want people whose faith produces service, generosity, mission, and compassion, then we have to take seriously the work of discipleship. We have to create environments where people can grow in Scripture, prayer, relationship, community, and love. We have to know people’s stories before we become consumed with their skills. We have to care about who they are becoming in Christ, not simply what they can contribute to the church.

And then service becomes fruit.There is a difference between forming servants and finding workers. There is a difference between saying, “Come follow Jesus with us,” and saying, “Thank God you’re here because we need somebody in the parking lot.” Our responsibility is not merely to keep ministries running. Our responsibility… is to make disciples. Now… I believe every church defines what it means to be a disciple according to that church’s context, mission, and culture. (But that’s another letter for another week. #StayTuned)

We need churches where people are known before they are needed, where belonging precedes obligation, where gifts are cultivated rather than merely consumed.

Because…. people do not join church to work. They come searching for God and a community to learn about God with.

…So before we ask for their hands, perhaps we should take the time to know their hearts…

…And if we tend the soil well, we may not have to nearly as ask as much, or pray as hard… for the fruit.

Two years of questions can feel like a lifetime. In that time, I doubted everything… my call, my competence, even the sound of my own voice. I kept trying to find where I fit, searching pulpits and programs for the ministry I longed to see. Frustration followed me everywhere.

Then I remembered Sojourner Truth’s famous question, “Ain’t I a Woman?” Her fierce challenge to a world that tried to deny her worth. One day, in the quiet of my own wrestling, her question became mine. I stopped complaining, stopped waiting, and asked myself: Ain’t I a preacher?

Ain’t I a Preacher?

I kept looking for a voice…
one to cry out for justice,
one to speak the truth I ached to hear.
I searched the pulpits,
listened at the doors of churches,
waited for someone to say what burned inside me.

And the question rose…
Ain’t I a preacher?

I watched ministries bloom around me,
wondered who would lead the work my heart longed for,
waited for a sign that the time was right.
And the question pressed…
Ain’t I a preacher?

Then came the quiet revelation:
the voice I was waiting for
was my own.
The ministry I longed to see
was already alive in me.

Ain’t I a preacher?
Yes,
the answer was planted in me
before I learned to ask the question.

I am the preacher I was searching for.
I am the voice I prayed would rise.
I am the call and the called.

So I will not wait for permission.
I will not wait for the perfect moment.
I will preach
in the sanctuary,
in the streets,
in every place God sends me.

Because the time is now.
Because the Word is alive.
Because I will not be silent.

Ain’t I a preacher?
Yes.
I am.

I am a preacher.

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Yesterday, I met Jesus.

Not in a dream. Not in a vision.
But in the concourse of the city.

He looked exactly as I always thought He would.
Tall, brown skin, locs framing His hazel eyes,
His spirit so gentle it disarmed me,
so safe I could not stop looking.

I had come to that place tired,
frustrated, with whispered prayers still heavy on my lips,
requests I had not dared tell another soul.
And then, He appeared.

A Black man with long dreads walked up and asked,
“Do you know about the WiFi?”

Though an odd question, I explained.
He nodded, then said softly,
“My school upstairs has an event tonight, the place I normally sit is taken.
I was just looking for one outlet.”

“There are plenty here,” I told Him.

He shifted.
“I do not really like sitting…”

“Out in the open?” I guessed, finishing his sentence.

“Yeah,” He said.
“And I do not have my hoodie today.”

I smiled.
“I get it. That is why I wore a hat.
But maybe the Listening Lab? It is pretty chill there.”

He paused, eyes distant.
“Actually… I feel an unction to go east.
I am going to take this as a sign.
Where are you from?”

“Memphis. Born and raised.” I replied with a little pride.

He looked surprised.
“I guess I have to get used to this.
There was a time when I was the only one who did not sound like Memphis.
Growing up in South Memphis, I spoke like this—”
(his words precise,
the kind that reveal a man who reads a lot).

I nodded.
“I know the feeling. I never fit in either.”

He laughed.
And then He began to tell me about always being
the only one of His kind,
how He searched for His people… his kind,
how He realized He was wired different on purpose.

And in His words, I felt my soul exhale.
“Man,” I said, “you have no idea how much I needed this.”

He smiled.
“I know. I can feel it.”

Before He left, He pulled out a card,
wrote His number across the back.
“I would love to stay connected,” He said.
“For now… I am going east.
I do not know where. I just know… east.”

And I just squinted at Him,
our eyes locked,
both of us smiling because we knew.

This was divine.
This was holy.
This was God answering prayers I had not spoken aloud.

Yesterday, I met Jesus.
And He looked like home.

Closing Reflection

I walked away with gratitude. Gratitude that God still shows up in flesh and Spirit to remind me that difference is not a deficit, it is design.

For those who feel you do not belong, hear me: you are not out of place. You are being led, even when the path feels unclear.

Because sometimes the holiest wisdom is this: I do not know where I am going. I just know I am going East. And if East is where Jesus walks, then East is where I will follow.

I went back to The University of Memphis campus on the day of the student involvement fair this August 2025. The setup was familiar. The lawn of the University Center filled with tables from student organizations, a DJ spinning music, students moving from table to table. The weather even held up in their favor. But despite the familiar scene, there was an obvious void. The music was there. The people were there. But the spirit was missing.

I walked upstairs to the Involvement Zone, the place where Multicultural Affairs once lived. Again, everything looked right. Students were sitting with lunch, organizations were preparing for meetings, flyers were being handed out. But just like outside, something was not there. The spirit of involvement. The spirit of connection. The spirit of home.

And I dare say the absence was because Multicultural Affairs, and the staff who embodied it, leaders like Dean Linda Hall and Toya Gillard, were nowhere in sight.

It was jarring. To be in a place that once felt so alive and so familiar, and to feel it hollowed out by absence. To be in a space that once felt like home, and realize it had become a strange land.

That moment did not only make me reflect on the university. It made me reflect on my whole life. Because Memphis without Multicultural Affairs is not the only place where home has become strange.

A House with No Furniture

I think about my own story. The teachers from my elementary-high school years who once set me on a path of believing I could dream big are gone. My grandmothers, who fed me wisdom and warmth, are no longer here. My mother, who gave me strength and identity, has joined the ancestors too. The kinship bonds of family do not feel the same without their presence. Even the home churches I once loved and called home no longer hold the same shape and identities.

I walk through memory like a house stripped bare. The structure is still there, but the furniture is gone. I keep reaching for the familiar only to discover that time has carried it away.

Singing in Exile

The psalmist once asked, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” That question sounds like my own today. How can I keep singing when nothing around me feels familiar? How can I sing when the people and places that once taught me to lift my voice are no longer here?

Yet even in exile… Israel found new words. Prophets rose up with visions of restoration. Songs of hope were written in strange soil. Lament gave birth to imagination.

Perhaps what feels like exile to me can become the place where God births something new. Perhaps the same Spirit who hovered over chaos in the beginning is still hovering now.

Creating New Histories

The closing of Multicultural Affairs reminded me that no institution lasts forever. Family bonds change. Churches and religious organizations shift. People move on. And yet… the work of creating spaces where people feel seen, loved, and whole is still ours to do.

Maybe the Spirit is inviting me not to rebuild what was, but to plant seeds for what will come. Seeds that future generations will look back on and say, this is where I felt most alive.

The Horizon is Wide Open

So I grieve what has been lost. I feel the ache of absence. I sit with the silence of empty rooms and the weight of vanished landmarks. Yet, like the psalmist, I will not let sorrow have the last word.

I will say to my soul: sing anyway. Sing in the strange land. Sing when memory aches and belonging feels far away. Sing because the God who held me yesterday still holds me today.

And while I sing I will build. I will plant seeds with trembling hands. I will believe that what feels like exile now will become the soil of promise.

The landmarks are gone. Yet the horizon is wide open. And I believe with the psalmist that goodness and mercy will follow me. Even here. Even now.

And yet my first response is still Hallelujah.

Not because I am naïve, not because injustice is not real, not because the blow is not sharp. But because as Phil Thompson sang, “You have rescued my life, and I am never going back.” Hallelujah is not the denial of pain; it is the defiant confession that God is still present even when the powers move recklessly.

For Such a Time as This

I cannot help but hear Esther’s words, “And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.”

We are living in what feels like a cultural fever dream; presidential candidates with cult like followings, local institutions gutting diversity efforts, polarization choking the public square, people of faith unsure where to plant their feet. And yet right here, right now, God is equipping a generation not just to survive but to speak, to build, to resist, to imagine, and to flourish.

• Unique giftings that do not always fit the mold

• Strange connections we did not see coming

• Uncomfortable positions that sharpen our voice

• Isolated moments that cultivate depth

• Weird proclivities that now look like prophecy

All of this is being woven together for such a time as this.

Rage or Resolve

When the news breaks, whether it is Trump’s latest spectacle or the University of Memphis making regressive moves, the first instinct for many is rage. And rage is not wrong. Rage is holy fuel. But rage without resolve burns out too quickly.

My own resolve is this: I will not allow the dissolution of multicultural affairs to dissolve my commitment to multicultural life. If the institution tears down the office, we will become the office. If they end the program, we will be the program. If they close the gate, we will build a table on the outside.

The Call of Memory

Now is the time to look back, not to long for Eden but to learn from our wilderness. Every awkward college meeting, every late night program, every hard lesson in advocacy, every moment when we had to “code switch” to survive, all of it becomes fruit for the future.

Our past experiences were not wasted; they are our training ground; they are our inheritance. And if we steward them well, they will become the foundation for what looks a little more like heaven than the brokenness we know today.

So What Now

I do not have all the answers. But I know this: history tells us that when institutions fail, movements rise. And movements rise when ordinary people remember they are not powerless, they are not voiceless, and they are not without a God who specializes in times such as these.

So yes, I grieve. Yes, I am frustrated. Yes, I will continue to fight. But I also say Hallelujah. Because the same God who brought us this far will not abandon us now.

And to my generation, my peers, my friends who are weary of the fight: lift your eyes; remember your lessons; gather your strength. Because we are not here by accident.

We are here for such a time as this.

And that is enough to keep going. Hallelujah.