Octogenarians

Octogenarians. “Octo” who? Ok’-te-je-nar’-ee-ens! An octogenarian is defined as a person between 80 and 90 years of age. In the Bible, I discovered at least three octogenarians. Instead of God retiring them, it seems like He waited until they reached their eighties to bring them into the most fruitful period of their lives. Moses was in his eighties when God decided to use him to rescue the people of Israel out of Egyptian slavery. Caleb (Joshua 14:10) started destroying giants and taking the territory God had promised him once he entered his eighties. Anna (Luke 2:37) was allowed to see the birth of Christ, which was the fruit of her sixty years of prayer and fasting, when she reached her eighties. This week we celebrate Pentecostal Tabernacle’s 80th year of existence. We’ve become an octogenarian and have entered a new season where we will begin to produce our greatest results! Hebrews 11:39-40 states, “All of them (the heroes of the Old Testament) pleased God because of their faith! But still they died without being given what had been promised. This was because God had something better in store for us. And He did not want them to reach the goal of their faith without us.” (New Century Version) My dad always told me that when he was younger, the old Christians used to pray, “Lord remember the generations that are to follow us!” Hebrews 11:39-40 reminds us that we all stand on the shoulders and efforts of generations prior to us. Bishop Allen C. Miller, one of our founding pastors, had a vision to purchase our building. The next pastor, Reverend Herman L. Greene, had a vision to remodel our facility and financially organize our ministry by securing our 501C3 (tax exempt status). By God’s grace, I’ve been called to grow the ministry into what prior generations prayed for regularly but knew they would never live to see. We who are alive to celebrate 80 years of Pentecostal Tabernacle’s existence must recognize that with every goal and dream accomplished by our ministry, there are many people alive and deceased who have a right to be a part of our celebration. I’ve had the honor of knowing and serving under these two former pastors, which is pretty amazing to me. Along with them, there are many who have invested in me and Pentecostal Tabernacle to whom I will be forever...
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Every Man’s Battle

For New England, this week’s been unusually hot. The leaves are supposed to be getting ready to turn colors. People are supposed to be breaking out their light jackets or at least sweaters. But instead I’m seeing T-shirts, shorts, and sandals. I drove home the other evening from prayer service. It was eighty degrees. Eighty degrees at night! As a man, eighty degrees is not a problem during the evening. The problem is eighty degrees during the day in a city full of young female professionals and college students. Being a bishop, there’s a certain risk in writing an article like this. A person who holds such a high ecclesiastical/religious position is not supposed to admit (let alone state publicly) that when the weather gets hot like this, his best defense is to simply stay in his office. We had a guest speaker at our conference who told us an interesting story. When a national ministry wanted to hire, he declined the position saying that he could not live in Miami or Los Angeles because his human nature prohibited him from living in an environment where he would have to constantly battle visual temptation. I wanted to jump out of my pew and yell, “Finally, a Christian leader who will at least admit that the challenge even exists!” Men have a hard time expressing deep mental, emotional, or physical challenges. It’s probably looked at as “being weak.” But when you add that to the fact that we are Christian men who should be able to “do all things through Christ who gives us the strength,” then it’s even worse. We’ve got God, the Big Kahuna, on our side, so we’re supposed to be able to handle our business (that is, our walk with God in holiness). Job’s statement, “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust at a young woman” (Job 31:1) seems only to add to our guilt. And yet I think that our answer can be found in James 5:16. “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth (accomplishes) much”. Thank God I have a men’s small group and some very close pastor friends with whom I can be real and who cover me in prayer. But as one man to another, I ask, “Who do...
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The Jena 6

Last Thursday a minister told me that her child was wearing black as an act of solidarity with The Jena 6. The Jena who? The Jena 6. I read about this case earlier this year in a magazine. Unfortunately, this is a very important issue of which most people seemed totally unaware until its recent rise in national attention. In short, it’s a court case involving six high school black male students from a small town in Louisiana called Jena. They were arrested and charged with attempted second degree murder after beating up a male white student in response to: (1) Three white male students hanging three “lynching nooses” on a tree warning blacks to not hang out there. The school officials simply deemed it a prank. (2) One of the black students being beaten up for attending a party deemed only for white students. No charges were brought. Race relations and racial tensions are subjects that people are usually very uncomfortable discussing. However, we must confront these very sensitive issues because I believe that racism in the church is alive and well. A Korean pastor friend of mine confronted a large organization regarding their Sunday School curriculum’s stereotyping of Asian people. He was basically told to mind his own business. I observe across our country that though many Blacks are willing to be led by pastors who are not Black, very few Whites are willing to have a pastor who is Black. Now racism in the church is nothing new. Even in the Bible, Peter had to be confronted a number of times regarding the manner with which he interacted with non-Jews (See: Acts 10 and Galatians 2:11-14). However, you’d think that after 2,000 years, the church would have made far more progress. I believe that God’s goal has always been diversity that reflects the make up of the community. As a Black pastor, it has always been my primary goal to lead a diverse congregation. However, situations like the “Jena 6” remind me that we as a nation and “The Church in America” are going to be dealing with the issue of race for a very long time. My hope is that at least the Church will face racism head on in a manner that does not ignore its existence in the hope that it will simply go away. As usual, I invite your...
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Lessons My Dad Taught Me

Last week I was listening to a minister friend of mine on television share a series entitled “Lessons My Mother Taught Me.” This is the second time I heard a well-known minister share sermons on the same theme. The Apostle Paul made a very strange statement in 1 Corinthians 4:15. He said to the church, “You might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers.” Sadly, that’s still the case even today as we celebrate Father’s Day. Yet we should consider ourselves fortunate and blessed if we’ve had a great father or father figure in our lives. I am glad to say that I’m one of those fortunate children who has a great dad. My dad passed on four important lessons that I believe make for a good father. The first lesson he taught me was how to take care of my wife. Over forty years ago my mom suffered a panic attack which forced her to give up driving. From that moment on my dad had to drive her everywhere. Yet I never heard him complain while he patiently served my mom. This helped me when, due to a bad experience prior to our marriage, my wife did not drive for the first five years of our marriage. It was because of my dad’s example that I was able to patiently encourage my wife to learn to drive again. The second lesson he taught me was responsibility for taking care of my children. I’m the first third-generation Greene to have graduated from college even though my dad has eight brothers and sisters. I still remember my dad cashing in all his investments to make sure that I was able to go to college, something he did not have the privilege of experiencing himself. As my daughters approach their college years, I know that I will do all that is within my power to do for them what their grandfather did for me. The third lesson my dad taught me was how to be a loyal friend. This May my dad and mom celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by renewing their vows. I was amazed that my dad’s best man and one of his main ushers in the wedding fifty years ago were not only in the renewal ceremony but are still his good friends. I’ve watched these men go through very difficult challenges...
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Twelve

Twelve years! Do you remember when you were twelve years old? You were on the verge of becoming an adolescent. Soon you would no longer be considered just a “kid”—you would be a teenager! I remember being a star Little League baseball player as a twelve-year-old. Like Barry Bonds, I was in a race to set the single season home-run record in my city. However, in spite of my name being in the paper every week, I could hardly wait to turn thirteen because then I would be in the Babe Ruth League. There you played by the same rules used by grown ups. You could take leads off of the base and tag up on fly balls, just like the Red Sox! As far as education, twelve was the end of grammar school. It was time for junior high school, which meant I would be changing classrooms to go from English to math, rather than staying in Mr. Ferraro’s room all day since he taught all my classes. And yet, while twelve places one on the edge of a new stage in life, twelve also represents the end or the completion of the stage in which one currently find himself. As much as I wanted to be in the Babe Ruth League, I would miss seeing my name in the local paper every week. And as much as I looked forward to moving from classroom to classroom in junior high, I would miss being in the senior class of grammar school. I’m writing on the significance of twelve because on June 3rd I celebrate my twelfth year as senior pastor of Pentecostal Tabernacle. Much has happened in those years. In my family life, my oldest daughter will legally become a woman and my wife and I were finally able to purchase a home. At PT, our congregation has grown dramatically, paid staff has increased, renovations have taken place, and most importantly, many lives have been changed by the grace of God. So rather than look forward to the challenges and excitement of getting to my teen years as a pastor, I think I’ll sit back this week and appreciate God’s blessings in my life with regard to the last twelve years. I hope that you will take time out to do the same, no matter in which stage of life you currently find yourself. For, in spite of...
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