Global Ministries Boston

Church Is To Be Blamed

CHANGE CAME THROUGH THE CHURCH
In the 60’s and the 70’s the Black churches in the south were the catalyst for social, economic, political and spiritual change. The church was the main social outlet for the Black community. The movement for change in the south was born out of the church. Furthermore, most of our the leaders who brought the systemic change in the south came out of the black church.

THE CHURCH USED TO BE AN AGENT OF CHANGE
In Boston, the Black church was used of God to bring about a revolution that motivated the leaders of the City of Boston to stop the violence that claimed the lives, through violence, of hundreds of teens from 1988 to 1996. Today, the many issues that plague the Black community have manifested itself in Black on Black crime.

DEATH ON THE STREETS OF BOSTON
Children and teens are killing their peers and parents by shooting them in the head and leaving them to die in the streets of Boston. Where is the church? Why is it silent?

THE CHURCH HAS BEEN BOUGHT OFF
I have concluded that the Black church has been “bought off” by the government through something called the faith-based initiative. The government says that we cannot pray in the school, that the Bible can no longer be read in the classrooms and that churches that accept government grants cannot teach about Jesus.

THE MESSAGE ABOUT JESUS “SAVED” FAMILIES
What saved the lives of thousands of teens that I used to work with is the message of hope and salvation that came from the pulpits, flowed into the streets and impacted the lives of youth and their familes who were living without hope.

When the government “pays the church off” to be silent the message of hope and salvation dies and the church loses its message and potency. When the government used the church as their base for the election campaigns, the church became a prostitute. When government officials isolate and marginalize pastors who are agents of change and buy off pastors to be silent, the church stops being the church and becomes simply a non-profit organization created to do nothing else but to bring money into their organization to sustain their existence.

I BLAME THE BLACK CHURCH
I am laying the death of our children, teens and adults at the doorstep of the Black church. The church has sold it message for government grants to hire staff that must be approved by the government.

WATERED DOWN
The church has watered down their message because it must be screened by the government before it can be proclaimed.

JESUS HAS TO GO
The church has taken the name of Jesus off their programs, applications for grant money and out of their messages that they preach so that the government will continue to pour federal, city and state dollars into the Black churches of Boston.

My anger and frustration is not with the GOVERNMENT. They are only doing what the government does, i.e., they sanitize and change the message of the church to make it politically correct so that our message of salvation will not hurt or offend the tax payer whose money is now running the churches in Boston.

STOP TAKING THE GRANTS
The Church needs to stop accepting the government money and start to win the lost for Jesus. I say that the church must raise the money to fund our ministries through the tithes from their members. If we want to stop the violence in th City of Boston every church must take the pledge to not accept the money from the government and teach and proclaim the message from the Bible without compromise and without needing to be politically correct.

In 1988, when I went to the Chez Vous Roller Skating Rink in Mattapan and worked with Christian leaders to stop the violence at Chez Vous we did it on a budget of $5,000 dollars a year that came from the church and our pockets. We saw Chez Vous transition from a place once called the “Bucket of Blood” or “Pistol City” to a place of peace. It was the message of Hope about a faith relationship in Jesus that changed people’s lives.

FEDERAL DOLLARS
It was when the federal dollars started pouring into Boston to fund the pastors in the crusade against violence that I began to see ministers sanitize their message, compete for the same “government welfare handouts” and stop trusting each other as they built their non-profit programs and empires. Their goal was to out do their ministerial colleagues so that they could attract the dollars to their churches to fund their ministries.

I charge the church with being greedy and loving money over against winning lost souls for Christ…without the government paying for it.

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