Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Bishop T.D. Jakes’ Virtual Conference Anticipates Nearly 10,000 As New Topics, Speakers Revealed…

Now Featuring CBS' Gayle King, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Actress Meagan Good!

Hello World,

Tackling today’s most pressing topics, Woman, Thou Art Loosed! Master Class welcomes Gayle King, anchor for CBS’ This Morning; Keisha Lance Bottoms, mayor of Atlanta; Angela Rye, attorney and CEO of IMPACT strategies; Meagan Good, actress; and Bozoma Saint John, chief marketing officer for Netflix; to a robust lineup of national voices.

Designed and created by Bishop T.D. Jakes, Master Class—exclusively offered at Woman, Thou Art Loosed!—will help women advance in their spheres of influence across business, entertainment, healthcare, technology, finance and ministry.

During this year’s virtual event Oct. 15-17, which nearly 10,000 women are expected to attend, Woman, Thou Art Loosed! Master Class will discuss current topics including Black Lives Matter, education, mental health and social justice in entertainment—led by Good and Saint John. Just-added session titled “What You Do vs. Who You Are”—featuring panelists King, Lance Bottoms and Rye—will address balancing a work persona with one’s overall identity. The pressure and demands of the workplace often require a different version of the woman who goes home to greet her family at night. For women of color especially, being allowed to show vulnerability is increasingly at odds. It seems that as women of color enter positions of authority and influence, they are held to a different likability standard. Are women of color allowed to be powerful on the job and likeable at the same time? And how can we identify the often-harmful yet subtle suggestions to separate identity from one’s job? In this intriguing session, the panel will discuss ways women who are doing it all can separate their identities from their careers and handle adversity in the world.

An event that typically draws tens of thousands of women from around the globe, Woman, Thou Art Loosed! is offering two options for attendees: Woman, Thou Art Loosed! Master Class will broadcast on Bishop’s Village for a fee, while Woman, Thou Art Loosed! Virtual Experience will be broadcast on YouTube, providing a unique online experience at no cost to attendees. YouTube speakers include conference founder Bishop T.D. Jakes, Serita Jakes, Sarah Jakes Roberts, Cora Jakes Coleman, Sheryl Brady and Yolanda Pierce.

Woman, Thou Art Loosed! Master Class speakers:

Bishop T.D. Jakes, senior pastor of The Potter’s House
Gayle King, anchor at CBS
Keisha Lance Bottoms, mayor of Atlanta
Angela Rye, attorney and CEO of IMPACT Strategies
Meagan Good, actress
Bozoma Saint John, chief marketing officer for Netflix
Van Jones, CEO of REFORM Alliance and CNN host
Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin
Allison Jean, mother of Bothem Jean
Anita Philips, nationally acclaimed trauma therapist and life coach
Caroline Leaf, communication pathologist and cognitive neuroscientist
Paula Madison, journalist and former NBCUniversal executive
Tina Naidoo, executive director of Texas Offender Reentry Initiative

Where:
Online at YouTube.com/TDJakesOfficial and at Bishop’s Village

Toyota and The Dream Project are the official sponsors of Woman, Thou Art Loosed Virtual Experience.

Detailed information about speakers, talent, topics and schedule can be found at WTAL.org/Virtual.

Tickets already purchased for the 2020 in-person event have been automatically transferred to the 2021 event. Registration for the 2021 conference can be done online at WTAL.org.

Woman, Thou Art Loosed! began as one of Bishop T.D. Jakes’ most popular books. Realizing the need to continually empower women outside the pages of his book, Jakes created one of the most successful global women’s conferences. Since the conference’s inception in 1996, Jakes has become one of the most popular Christian leaders in the U.S. For decades Jakes has brought inspirational and motivational speakers to the stage to help women around the world be loosed from a myriad of strongholds including depression, guilt, loss of faith and helplessness. The conference will take its curtain call next year in Atlanta.

Any thoughts?

Posted on Sunday, October 11, 2020

Chadwick Boseman’s Brothers Share About Their Brother, Reveal Final Prayer For Him…

Hello World,

The more I hear about Chadwick Boseman, star of Black Panther who died at 43 years old on Aug. 28 from colon cancer, the more I’m impressed by how he lived his life including his faith. Recently, his brothers were interviewed by The New York Times. The Grio shared a few snippets from the interview.

Boseman, who hailed from Anderson, S.C, was raised in the church along with his brothers by his parents Leroy and Carolyn in a large, God-fearing, close-knit family. He was always interested in the arts. Kevin was a dancer for Alvin Alley and other dance troupes, inspiring his younger brother who eventually started to pursue theater. Chadwick was initially interested in writing and directing but it was his Howard University professors that encouraged him to act.
“Chad was gifted,” said his brother, Pastor Derrick Boseman, 54, who said when his youngest sibling was a child, he could sit and draw anyone. “He’s probably the most gifted person I’ve ever met.”
Pastor Bosman was praying with his brother in his final days. Chadwick never publicly revealed he was sick, just continued on with his career while keeping up a pace that would have challenged someone 100% healthy. His brother said he was praying for Chad to get better until he said something that changed his focus. “Man, I’m in the fourth quarter, and I need you to get me out of the game,” Chadwick told his oldest brother. “When he told me that, I changed my prayer from, ‘God heal him, God save him,’ to ‘God, let your will be done,’” said Pastor Boseman. “And the next day he passed away.”

Wow, that took a lot of courage and faith on Pastor Boseman’s part to change his prayer that way…What say you?

Below is an Instagram post from his brother Kevin Boseman…

View this post on Instagram

Thank You, God. Thank you, Brother. Thank you, Family. Thank you, all. Thank you.

A post shared by KEVIN BOSEMAN (@kevinboseman) on Sep 8, 2020 at 1:15pm PDT

Any thoughts?

Posted on Sunday, September 27, 2020

Jacqueline J. Holness (ME) Writes Racial Reconciliation Cover Story for Christianity Today!

Latasha Morrison/ Photograph by Ben Rollins

Hello World,

I’m so excited because recently I was blessed with the assignment of writing a cover story about racial reconciliation as it pertains to the church in Atlanta for Christianity Today, one of the foremost publications in the Christian world! Although it is a thorny topic without question and I certainly wish we didn’t have to continue highlighting this issue, I’m glad that I am continuing the work of my father, who is passionate about this topic. In fact, he created a newsletter for the Christian church, hosted an annual Racial Reconciliation Service each January (to coincide with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day) and traveled to speaking engagements to address racial reconciliation. Additionally, my father is the one who introduced me to Christianity Today magazine when I was only reading VIBE, Essence, The Source and similar magazines back in the day.

Well, my article “Racial Reconciliation Is Still a Dream for Atlanta Christians” is now available for you to read. Below is the beginning of the article and you can click on the link below the excerpt to read the rest.

Dhati Lewis set out to start a church that could be a blueprint for urban discipleship, a church “in the city, for the city, that looks like the city.” But first, he needed a city.

A decade ago, he left the college town of Denton, Texas, for Atlanta, an urban hub four times larger. With him came 25 longtime ministry partners, including rappers Lecrae and Sho Baraka and pastor John Onwuchekwa. Together they planted Blueprint Church in the Old Fourth Ward, a story chronicled in a recent documentary, Becoming Blueprint, released in honor of the church’s 10th anniversary.

Lewis’s approach to ministry grew out of the tension he felt between the white evangelical culture that fueled his faith in Denton and the familiar black culture of his upbringing. In Atlanta, though he was a black pastor leading a diverse congregation in a majority-black city, the work of urban church planting was complicated.

For one, the area around his church continued to gentrify. “In this neighborhood, what scares me is the fact that you have Section 8 housing on one end and like a million-dollar home on the other end,” he said in the documentary.

Read the rest HERE.

Below is the gorgeous cover of the October issue of Christianity Today!

My story is part of a four-story cover package. The official description is as follows:

Raphael Warnock, the pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church who’s now running for US Senate, talked about his calling into politics as a Christian. He said, “My impact doesn’t stop at the church door. That’s actually where it starts.” That approach to living out the gospel extends across generations and segments of society in Atlanta. In this month’s cover package, we hear from pastors, politicians, and entrepreneurs—black Christian leaders whose faith calls them back into their communities in the diverse hometown of Martin Luther King Jr.