As a preacher’s kid, my earliest memory is riding to church with my father on a Sunday morning. I recall asking him why we had to drive so far to attend services. He responded by reflecting on how far Jesus came from heaven to earth to save our souls.

Growing up, I never missed a Sunday school lesson or a Wednesday night prayer meeting. I spent countless hours in the pastor’s study, listening to preachers share their thoughts, laugh, and joke. To me, they were heroes, dressed in their Sunday finest, passionately delivering sermons that moved people to the altar to repent or commit their lives to Jesus Christ.

Being the preacher’s son gave me unique access to these men behind the scenes, and carrying their sweaty clothes to their cars became a regular task as I matured.

However, as a teenager, I began to notice contradictions in what was said from the pulpit versus what occurred in private. I witnessed flirtatious interactions between church members and observed strange women lingering by cars as I helped the pastors. These observations sparked questions in my mind, but I never voiced my concerns.

The early 1980s were about 20 years removed from the civil rights era, a time when black preachers were pivotal leaders in the movement, using their churches as meeting places. Back then, they were master strategists, able to correct those straying from the Gospel. While discrepancies existed, there was a larger goal uniting their efforts.

Fast-forward to today, and the landscape of black churches has changed dramatically. Sunday school has been replaced by additional services designed for convenience, while Wednesday night prayer meetings have morphed into mass therapy sessions. Many pastors, once engaged in civil rights, now focus on championing social justice causes and various political ideologies. The absence of black youth in these services raises concerns about their interest in engaging with the church.

I find myself questioning what happened to the “black church” I once cherished. I no longer recognize the hateful preachers and dead churches.

Delving deeper, I traced some issues back to the Margaret Sanger Negro Project, which paid black pastors to remain silent about the establishment of abortion clinics in their neighborhoods. Now their neighborhood streets reflect the bloodshed happening in the wombs of many black women.

This silence from the pulpits allowed moral decay to infiltrate communities, as preachers shifted focus towards self-help and success principles and away from the Gospel. Blame has now shifted from their own actions to all “white” people. The church adopted an executive model, which continues to undermine its foundational mission today.

Sadly, many black churches have become venues for discussing grievances rather than places of genuine worship.

It’s disheartening to witness black leaders prioritize political favors over their spiritual calling. If we desire to see our black churches return to houses of true worship, we must expose compromised leaders and demand that our pulpits remain neutral. It’s crucial to abandon the CEO model that measures success by numbers rather than spiritual growth.

We must return to Scripture and stand firm on what is right and true. As Martin Luther King Jr. once expressed, we should be judged by the content of our character rather than the color of our skin. I long for the black church to reclaim its moral high ground in society, moving away from divisive politics.

My prayer is for revival and restoration within black communities through the church, not the government. For this to happen, there must be a movement of black Christian conservatives who refuse to allow their white brothers and sisters to be labeled as racist for loving the country our ancestors helped build.

Consider me to be a vocal solution from this point on correcting and pointing my black brothers and sisters to the truth and righteousness.