Posted on Sunday, June 14, 2015

Have You Heard of Prophetic Dancing?! ‘Preach’ Episode 2 Recap…

Hello World,

I watched again…Like the nosy driver that’s gotta stare at the accident on the road although the driver wasn’t a part of it, thankfully, I found myself tuning into “Preach” on Friday night to see what shenanigans in the name of Jesus the prophetesses would be up to again…And I wasn’t disappointed…unfortunately, I guess…

This week’s episode mostly centered on Dr. Taketa Williams (Aside: Have you ever met someone who had the Dr. title and wondered where in tarnation did that person acquire a doctorate degree? ) If you don’t remember Dr. Taketa, she is known as the “Beyoncé of the Preaching World.”

In this week’s episode, Dr. Taketa wants to help her protégé Rebecca Hairston develop the gift of prophecy which she defined as the “awesome ability to see into the future and hear into the future.”

The protégés from left to right: Rebecca Hairston, Hadassah Elder, Angel Pound & Stacey Williams

I must admit prophesying is probably the spiritual gift that I’ve most wondered about…And it happened to me at least once that I can remember…Not that I prophesied, but someone prophesied to me…It has been said that if someone has the gift of prophesy, you will know it because whatever that person has prophesied about it will come true…And it came true for me, but I digress…

We also find out how Dr. Taketa met Rebecca in the first place. Apparently, they met when Dr. Taketa got her nails done as Rebecca was and still is a nail technician at an Ohio spa. During her spa visit, while Rebecca is doing Dr. Taketa’s nails, she explains that there are three levels of prophecy…

The Office of Prophecy.
The Gift of Prophecy.
The Spirit of Prophecy.

I’m not a prophetess so I cannot verify that, but that is what she says, and then she asks Rebecca if she has ever prophesied. When Rebecca admits she has prophesied to her daughters, Dr. Taketa blows up! “You are too jacked up to prophesy!” According to Dr. Taketa, Rebecca has been prophesying without authorization! She then proceeds to show her how it is done as she has a prophecy for the owner of the spa and asks Rebecca to bring the owner to her. Among several statements made to the owner, Dr. Taketa says, “No longer will your chariots turn into pumpkins!” Dang, she broke it down Cinderella style! Apparently, according to Dr. Taketa, her business is finally going to take off! The owner is grateful for the prophecy and says she and her husband were just discussing the same thing and had told no one about their discussion…

So now that Rebecca has seen prophesying in action, Dr. Taketa challenges her to step up her prophesying skills and prophesy at a conference she is going to in New York. Rebecca decides to prepare a prophetic dance and perform at the conference in New York. I aine neva heard of a prophetic dance…Have you?

Prophetess Linda Roark & Angel Pound

Meanwhile, Prophetess Linda Roark is working on building the confidence of her protégé Angel Pound. In last week’s episode, she says she has been called the “Blue-Eyed Soul Sister,” and in this week’s episode, she says, “the color of my skin is wrong.” I think she needs to #AskRachel (Rachel Dolezal )about this because I’m sure she is saying the same thing…smh…Anywho, Prophetess Linda explains that when Angel came to her church four and a half years ago, she was drug addicted. And as a result of her past, she doesn’t feel qualified for certain levels of ministry…As they walk through a book store, they walk by tarot cards. Angel reveals that she along with her friends once used tarot cards, and she would always get the death card…deeeep…

Prophetess Linda challenges her to share her testimony with others to build her confidence…So she decides to drop in at Rebecca’s prophetic dance rehearsal and share her testimony with the dancers…She shares that when she was seven months pregnant with her second child, she was told she didn’t have enough amniotic fluid to sustain her baby, and her baby died. Her pain led to stripping and then to drugs. She says she overdosed and nearly died three times. That is an awesome testimony, I must say…One of the dancers is encouraged by her testimony as she used to be a stripper…

Dr. Belinda C. Scott & Hadassah Elder

In last week’s episode, Hadassah revealed that her Muslim mother Rochelle does not understand Hadassah’s Christian faith nor her aspiration to be a prophetess. In this week episode, we meet Hadassah’s mother. They meet at a local bakery and cafe to discuss their differences. First of all, she looks just like her mother, who is adorned in a head wrap. Hadassah says she feels like she has to choose between her spiritual mother Dr. Belinda C. Scott and her biological mother. But during their discussion, Hadassah’s mother agrees to meet Dr. Belinda for the first time.

Dr. Belinda, who has been counseling Hadassah about what is going on with her mother, is prepared to move Hadassah into her home if she needs a place to stay. And trust me, she has got room. You know your home is big when you have two winding staircases! But before she can discuss the matter with her husband, Dr. Darrell Scott, he tells her he has a surprise gift for her birthday…(Aside: if you have the gift of prophecy, is anything ever a surprise?) He brings her outside of their large pink home and shows her his surprise gift : a White Range Rover! While Dr. Belinda takes out her new vehicle for a drive with Dr. Darrell in the passenger seat, she asks him how he feels about moving Hadassah into their home. He is not in favor of it, particularly as he doesn’t want to have to put on a housecoat while he is walking around in their home…LOL…

But thankfully, by the end of the episode, Hadassah’s mother and Dr. Belinda meet, and they both discover that they are reasonable people and that there is room enough for both of them in her life…I guess if I had to pick a favorite prophetess, my favorite one is Dr. Belinda. Why? Dr. Taketa and Prophetess Linda come across as caricatures while Dr. Belinda seems like a real person, and her husband is hilarious!

Prophetess Kelly Crews and her protégé Stacey Williams were not featured at all in this episode?

NYC

The time has finally come for Rebecca to show and prove her prophecy skills at the NYC conference…The only problem is that Rebecca is late for the conference, and Dr. Taketa and her team wonder if Rebecca will show at all…But as we like to say in church, delay is not denial…In spite of the bad weather, traffic, etc., Rebecca and her dancers show up and perform, and Dr. Taketa is impressed by her performance which resulted in many people in the room crying including some of the dancers…Dr. Taketa says, “That was your gift on display.” She also says, “A prophetess is one who can take a licking and keep on ticking.”

Okay…If you say so…And I still don’t get prophetic dance…Can somebody splain that to me?

Any thoughts?

P.S. Side-eye courtesy of Noami Campbell 🙂

Posted on Monday, June 8, 2015

Did You Watch Lifetime’s All-New Docuseries ‘Preach’ on Friday?! My Recap…

Hello World,

I did. My answer to the question in the headline of this post…smh…“Preach” is a visual representation of why some people are turned off by preachers and by extension Christianity…Don’t get me wrong…The show is entertaining…the same way an old-fashioned circus is entertaining complete with little people, giants, bearded women, conjoined twins, etc. This “docuseries” could be an opportunity to showcase female preachers, who are still not wholly accepted in the Church, speaking truth to power. Instead these female preachers use over-the-top antics and quips reminiscent of Jim Bakker (before he went to prison), Jerry Falwell and other evangelists of that ilk…

Below is a breakdown of the prophetesses, which is how they are addressed on the show, and what happened on the show…

Dr. Belinda C. Scott is the first prophetess shown the in the docuseries. She is the co-founder and co-pastor of New Spirit Revival Center Ministries, Inc., in Cleveland Heights, Ohio and apparently, the most prominent of the four prophetesses featured on the show. She corrals the three other prophetesses in order to have a deliverance service by the end of the show. She seems to be the most balanced of the four, and she comes across as sensible and empathetic. She has also done well in her ministry it seems. Her home, which is shown a few times, is large and luxurious and appears to be on a sizable lot as it is not near any other homes…

Adorned with a long blond over black hair wig, Dr. Taketa Williams says she has been known as the “Beyoncé of the Preaching World.” I don’t know about that, but I must admit her coral blouse that was long-sleeved on one side and short-sleeved on the other was giving me life…She co-pastors the Impact Christian Center in Columbus, Ohio…

Prophetess Linda Roark must be Lifetime’s answer to Pastor Paula White. She is a white woman with suburban mom blonde hair and blue eyes and claims she is known as the “Blue-Eyed Soul Sister.” With her loud, raspy voice, she says it has been said that “she may be white, but she preaches like she is black.” Roark, who is co-pastor of World Commissioned Church in Hamilton, Ohio, admits she has a past as she used to frequent bars and smoked weed…

Dr. Belinda’s former protégé Prophetess Kelly Crews, who is also white, is the only single prophetess…Like Dr. Belinda, she also comes across as balanced, which is maybe why not much of her story was revealed in this first episode….Kelly Crews Ministries is located in Bedford, Ohio…

And here is the twist about “Preach.” Each of these four prophetesses have protégés who are being mentored by the women…

Dr. Belinda’s mentee is Hadassah Elder. With her box braids in a huge bun, she looks more like Beyoncé than Dr. Taketa…No shade…Well, maybe a little… Her back story is pretty interesting…She grew up in the Muslim faith, and her mother is not trying to understand why she is now a Christian and wants to become a prophetess…Plus, her mom doesn’t understand tithing…Hadassah says her mother asked her, “Why do you tithe when you don’t have anything?” A fair question although I believe in tithing although it is not mandated according to the New Testament….Also, Dr. Belinda is teaching her how to “lay hands” so that she can do so during the deliverance service…Hadassah compares learning how to “lay lands” to getting your first pair of red bottom shoes…Okay? Really?

Like her mentor Dr. Taketa, her protégé Rebecca Hairston, a single mother with three girls, is also looking forward to learning how to “lay hands” like Dr. Taketa in this first episode…In preparation for this “laying hands” lesson, Dr. Taketa takes Rebecca to a gun range?! Where dey do that at? I guess in Ohio. Dr. Taketa says target practice is a good tool to learn how to harness the power used in “laying hands.” “In order to handle power, you have to focus,” Dr. Taketa says…Although Rebecca has three daughters, she hasn’t seen her middle daughter in four years…It wasn’t told why that is the case, but I guess that will be addressed in future shows…

Prophetess Linda’s protégé Angel Pound , a former drug addict who used to dance in clubs, comes across as a little touched…She declares that no witches, warlocks, demons, etc. will come against her mentor during her watch…I know that we Christians believe in demons and evil spirits, but her declaration made me feel some type of way…During one scene, she goes to her home and discusses her mentor with her husband….She tells him she isn’t going to watch TV and is going to fast and pray…In the next scene, she is shown praying loudly while on her knees in one room while her husband is the next room listening to her pray and looking a little puzzled…

To be honest, I really don’t remember much about Prophetess Kelly’s protégé Stacey Williams, who is newly married and pregnant…I guess more will be revealed…

The Deliverance Service…

Let me go ahead and admit something about myself…I don’t attend a charismatic church…If you come to my church, you will not see folks falling out or “laying hands”…It’s not that I don’t believe in “laying hands” because “laying hands” was mentioned in the Bible and falling out in front of Jesus and everybody is sometimes necessary when you are going through…But I’m just not all that used to that…And that is what folks are doing during this service…The prophetesses, along with their mentees, got to laying hands and folk fell out like it was hot in there…The mentees, particularly Hadassah and Rebecca, are scared to try it because they’ve never done it before…But they apparently learned their “laying hands” lesson because the whole room seems to have fell out in this episode…

Like I said, Preach was entertaining but not necessarily the best representation of female preachers…

What y’all think? Are you going to watch?

Any thoughts?

Posted on Thursday, May 14, 2015

Should Beyoncé and Jay Z Have Bought a Converted Church Mansion?

Hello World,

Word on the street is that BeyonZ other known as The Carters allegedly bought “La Casa de Castille, a hulking, 13,292-plus-square-foot Spanish Baroque-style converted church mansion in the heart of New Orleans’ Garden District,” for approximately $2. 6 million according to Variety magazine. The building was once known as Westminster Presbyterian Church and was constructed in the 1920s. “The altar is now the dining room, and the master suite, replete with sitting area, two-room bath and a dressing area, is located on the third level in what was once the choir loft.”

Am I the only one that sees this purchase as sacrilege?

I remember when I first heard that Third Baptist Church in Atlanta would become the House of Blues for the 1996 Summer Olympics held in the A, I was aghast that what was once a house of prayer would now become a venue for the blues…Even James Brown had a problem with performing there according to this article on augustachronicle.com. In fact, a tent had to be erected in the venue’s parking lot in order for him to perform…”I’m having a little problem with the church,” Mr. Brown said Wednesday in an interview from his office in Augusta. “We’re going to play in the yard. I’m going to do my singing and dancing in a tent.”

Following the games, the House of Blues was renamed The Tabernacle although it continues to operate as a venue for a variety of musical acts. I remember discussing my feelings about this issue with a musical artist. I was also sharing about my faith with this artist and declared that I would never cross the threshold the Tabernacle because the house of God had been converted into a secular music showcase. (And to be clear, I do listen to more than Christian and or gospel music, but I don’t think every venue is for every artist.)

Well chile, I made a hypocrite of myself when a Christian friend offered me a free ticket to see Jill Scott at the Tabernacle. I’ve been a fan of Jilly from Philly since her first album and someone gave the opportunity to see her free too? I told my Christian friend about my apprehension, but she assured me that it would be alright with God although my spirit didn’t exactly agree…When I walked into the mammoth former church house, which used to have a membership of over 3,000, I could see how it used to be a church. The pews had been removed and the stage replaced the altar area, but other than that, the construction looked similar to what it must have been when it was a church. And wouldn’t you know it that as I was getting my groove on, I saw that very same musical artist that I had told that I would never go into the Tabernacle much less party up in there…It was a ministry failure…And that wasn’t the last time either, I went there for two more concerts: one for Erykah Badu and one for Lauryn Hill. I figured that since I had already been there once, what did it matter if I went there again and again? (By the way, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill are pretty much at the top of my list for my favorite artists of all time…)

So fast forward to 2012 as I was preparing for the launch party of my book “After the Altar Call: The Sisters’ Guide to Developing a Personal Relationship With God.” I tried to have my party at the Museum Bar, another converted church building here in Atlanta, because I thought it would be cool to use the venue for its original purpose: to uplift God. But the venue wasn’t available which in hindsight was probably for the best since I don’t think I agree with church houses being converted to secular structures…