Challenges of Black Pentecostal Leadership in the 21st Century

Introduction
Thank you for inviting me to address you on this special occasion of the opening of this Leadership Training Centre. May I congratulate all of you on what must have been sheer hard work to get this far. I suspect there’s more hard work ahead to make it a success. I pledge you my prayers and support in whatever ways I can be helpful; personally, and through my work at Churches Together in England. I have been asked to address myself to the subject ‘Challenges of Black Pentecostal Leadership in the 21st Century’, and I welcome the opportunity to reflect upon this important theme.

I am not the first to attempt to identify and articulate the key challenges that face us, and I am sure I will not be the last. And so I come to this task humbly and prayerfully. I suspect that nothing of what I have to say will be new to some of you and certainly it will not be rocket science, however, I hope that our engagement together, with God in our midst will bring some illumination; some new light to guide us on our way. I intend to lay before us today seven key challenges, but I begin by unpacking the title of my lecture: ‘Challenges of Black Pentecostal Leadership in the 21st Century’.

‘Challenge’
In contemporary parlance, we can tend to view the word ‘challenge’ in somewhat passive terms. However, in its true meaning, ‘challenge’ implies an invitation or summon to do something, like take part in a contest. When the Philistine champion, the giant Goliath of Gath challenged Saul and the men of Israel to ‘choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to (fight) me’(1 Sam 17.9), that was a challenge that demanded a response; which eventually David made and spared King Saul’s and Israel’s blushes. A challenge demands a response, and if a response is not forthcoming, the contest is awarded in favour of ones opponent. So when today we speak of the challenges facing us we are not referring to something passive, hypothetical, or ephemeral; rather, we refer to matters that confront us and which demand our response. And we fail to respond at our peril.

‘Black Pentecostal’
In the British context, ‘Black Pentecostal’ has two main meanings. First, it refers to those churches that are led and membered in the majority by people of African and Caribbean heritages. Black skin colour is important in the British context because it is symbolic of a particular sociology, history and experience lived in relation to the adversity of white racism. Black is therefore more than skin deep. Second, ‘Black Pentecostal’ belongs to the movement that is rooted in the experience that is iconized by Azusa Street and related revivals, that emerged around and after 1900; of which the five enduring identifying theological marks, according to the Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements are; i) the works of grace - justification and sanctification, ii) baptism in the Holy Spirit, iii) premillennialism, iv) healing, and v) miracles. Black Pentecostalism in Britain derives from this tradition and according to Christian Research’s 2005 English Church Census, is among the fastest growing in an overall declining national church attendance; with, for example, the New Testament Church of God showing an increase of 37% in Sunday attendance between 1998 and 2005. But before we get carried away, its worth remembering that African and Caribbean people total just 2% of the overall population and furthermore not all Black churchgoers are Pentecostals. By extrapolating from Brierley’s figures, we can suggest that in 2005, 51% the 300,000 Pentecostal church goers were Black. There are at least that many Black worshipers in the historic and other independent churches in Britain.

‘Leadership’
Many are the theories on and about leadership. Here are a few popular views: some highlight the difference between a leader and a manager; some say leadership can be learnt others say it is innate. Some say God anoints you at the point of appointment, others insist the anointing precedes the appointment. The purists speak of directive and participative leadership, task or people orientated leadership, transactional and transformational leadership, Team leadership, and much beside. The likes of John Maxwell believe profoundly that leadership can be learnt, and he provides, amongst other aids, a book called the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. It states quite simply, follow them and people will follow you. Another is his 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, with the promise that if you cultivate them you will become the person others will want to follow. It may be instructive to highlight two examples from the ministry of Jesus that illustrates his attitude to leadership: ‘I am among you as the One who serves’ (Luke 22.27); ‘he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out’ (John 10.3). Jesus was as much at ease leading ‘among’ as well as ‘out in front’ of his flock. Which of these models current Black Pentecostal Leadership mirror, I leave for further discussion!

‘The 21st Century’
I want to use four terms to describe the 21st Century: post-modern, post-colonial, post-denominational and post-Christendom.

i) Post-modern
John Drane observes that Western Civilisation, based upon European Enlightenment values, has three philosophical facets; rationalism - which asserts that the only things worth knowing are what we can think about in particular analytical and abstract ways; materialism – which asserts that the only things worth thinking about are those we can see, touch and handle; and reductionism – which asserts that everything can be understood by taking them to pieces. These three concepts of rationalism, materialism and reductionism constitute the basic philosophical foundation of post-modernity. It describes also the abolition or erosion of conventional certainties, replacing them with a new pluralism in an exciting world of endless possibilities and uncertainties. Walter Breuggemann argues that a post-modern climate recognises that there is no given definition (of anything) and that rival claims must simply be argued out. Conversely, modernity was when everybody knew their place and stayed there; the slave, the servant, and the poor knew their place beneath the slave master, the lord of the manor and the rich, and stayed there. Brueggemann calls this a period of ‘certitude and domination’, and cites Karl Marx, who astutely observed, that the ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class. Since I and my sort were never part of that ruling class, I do not clamour for the return of modernity, I merely observe that everything is up for grabs.

ii) Post-colonial
A second signifier of the 21st Century is the term ‘Post-colonial’. This identifies a period after imperialistic colonial rule, particularly in relation to Britain and her former colonies in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. However, as Anthony Reddie and Michael Jagessar point out, post-colonial is not about the demise of colonialism as ‘post’, or past, since it embodies both ‘after’ and ‘beyond’, its not just about historical chronologies, but more about adopting a critical stance, oppositional tactic or subversive strategy. Within postcolonialism, is, according to R. S. Sugirtharajah, an ongoing battle for emancipation, and a continuing battle to dismantle imperial institutions and dominating structures. And so, this post-colonial space is a problematic one, because as Musa W. Dube points out, our current relationships involve the colonised and the coloniser, the ruler and the ruled, the centre and the periphery, the first world and the two-thirds world. There may even be resonance here too with the relationship between some churches’ General Headquarters and their outposts.

iii) Post-denominational
A third signifier of the 21st Century is described by the term ‘post-denominational’. As in the other two themes, post-denominational does not describe the absence of denominations, rather it describes a time when the power and rule of sectarian denominationalism is under serious question and strain as Christian belonging depends upon new and alternative factors. I remember when I sang with gusto, ‘Church of Prophecy, Church of Prophecy is my belief, Church of Prophecy till I die; I was born and bred Church of Prophecy and I’ll die on the Prophecy side’. I would not sing that now. Post-denominational describes a period when the old certainties of sectarian boundaries are waning and some have all but vanished. The names are still there and new ones emerge everyday, but the people so gathered under these various banners are increasingly seeing themselves as part of the ekklesia, less as the property of a denomination or person.

It may be that one way to understand our post-denominational times is by applying Rick Warren’s ‘spiritual surfing’ theory. Here, people look for where the wave of God is and surf there, rather than join those trying to build waves. It may also be the case that denominational ties have been replaced by the cult of personalities and that Christians now divide their loyalties between denominations, personalities, ministries, and ecumenical streams. What is not in doubt is that things ain’t what they used to be. As Hans Kung puts it, the future has already begun; and, he further argues, even if the church wanted to, it cannot stand aside from this world-wide reorientation which heralds a new era. Kung does however offer this hope, ‘what looks like a serious crisis may mark the moment of new life; what looks like a sinister threat may in reality be a great opportunity’.

iv) Post-Christendom
If this is a moment of opportunity, then it occurs against a background of not just post modernity, post colonialism and post denominationalism, but also post Christendom. Although it is true that Christianity is growing in the two-thirds world, it is also true that in the Western One-Third world where we live, Christianity as the contemporary cornerstone of custom, morals and culture is a thing of the past or at best on the wane. In its place are myriad faiths and spiritualities and a rampant, strident atheism: the ‘death of God’ brigade. John Drane asserts simply but profoundly that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift of massive proportions. Drane reminds us that when nineteenth-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche spoke of the death of God he implied the disintegration of the entire religio-philosophical basis upon which Western civilisation had been built. He describes this regressive process in the following way: that in the earliest times humans sacrificed each other to the gods, then later they sacrificed their instincts and nature to the gods, and in a third and final stage they sacrificed God leaving nothing to worship save stone, stupidity, gravity and fate. I hope I am not painting too gloomy a picture of our times; I am merely attempting to present a picture of the context in which this leadership centre is being raised up by God in the New Testament Church of God, in Black Pentecostalism, in the Church in Britain.

A Nation that has rejected God
Sometimes I feel like I live in the nation upon which woe was pronounced because they forgot God and called evil good and good evil, darkness light and light darkness, bitter sweet and sweet bitter (Isaiah 5.20). sometimes it feels like the time referred to in Romans 1.18- 21 ‘…for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…because although they knew God they did not glorify him as God…’ I scarcely need remind you of the spiritual, social, political and economic chaos we are in locally, nationally and internationally. There are numerous international political and economic wars and intra-national tribal conflicts, 10% of the world consume 90% of the world’s resources, with millions dying in abject poverty; the phenomenon of globalisation means that multi-nationals backed by unfair trade arrangements keep the rich rich and the poor poor. A report by Ian Duncan Smith’s, titled ‘Breakdown Britain’, highlights issues such as family breakdowns, educational failure, worklessness and economic dependence, addictions and indebtedness among our ills; then there is the little fact that our kids are lost, being killed and killing each other on our streets.

Is it any wonder that some now view the church and particularly the Black Church as the last hope of redemption for this country. As someone told me recently, it’s only the church that can help us now! And some of our own have articulated what a few of these challenges are; let me name three. First, Robert Beckford continues to argue that the Black Church must develop a political theology and praxis, and not allow notions of transcendence through rapturous music, singing and preaching to foster political ignorance and naivety. Second, Anthony Reddie has argued for the Black Church to develop an education programme that is liberative, providing people with the tools to survive in a racialised environment. We do not need education that simply create clones, and obedient denominational cadres. Third, Mark Sturge has laid down the challenges of credibility and integrity, relevance, confidence, spiritual impact, inspiring young people, and punching our weight in the public square. Many others from inside and outside have challenged the Black Pentecostal Church, yet it remains to be seen whether we have the stomach for the fight. Have we the will to move beyond maintenance to mission? On the assumption that my part-rhetorical question attracts a ‘yes’, I want to name seven clear challenges that I believe demand answers. I posit them in the hope that this leadership centre will help facilitate an articulate and spiritual response to them.

1) The History Challenge
The history challenge that is before us begins with the repeated biblical imperative to ‘remember’. For example, Exodus 13.3 ‘And Moses said to the people: ‘Remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the LORD brought you out of this place…’’ Here, as elsewhere, the root meaning of remember is to ‘mention’. So, the historic challenge to remember requires that we find ways to mention important people, happenings, and things. This calls for a change of vocabulary and iconography because what we say, iconize and celebrate illustrate everything about the value we place or do not place on what has gone before, and their influence on our future direction. The Jamaican hero Marcus Garvey has said that history is the land-mark by which we are directed into the true course of life. However, it is not only important that history is told, it matters who tells it. Richard Reddie reminds us of an African proverb that says, until lions have their own historians, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. History is somebody’s story, and that somebody is almost always the victor, rarely does the victim’s story get told. Black Pentecostal leaders of a people whose history goes largely untold, or badly told, have a responsibility to develop a vocabulary and an iconography that mentions and marks their history appropriately. Equally, our focus on history must include a new vocabulary about the historical Jesus, a first century Palestinian Jew, not an 18th Century European.

Our responsibility to Rootless African Caribbean youth
I am in little doubt that a key problem affecting our young people today is a lack of identity linked to a lack of familiarity with their history: where they come from, the morals, spirituality and values upon which those communities were built, the heroes and sheroes upon whose shoulders they stand, and the struggles and victories they fought and either learned from or won. The identity needs of our young place upon us a historical challenge. Indeed, I beg to suggest that as Robin Walker has recently articulated, the history of the human race needs to be re-told, properly. The bicentenary year of the parliamentary act to abolish the Slave Trade is a timely reminder of how history needs to, and can, be revised. At the start of 2007 when asked who they most associated with ending the enslavement of Africans, overwhelmingly people, black and white, named William Wilberforce. However, marking the bicentenary has made manifest a better balanced historical recounting of this epoch of human tragedy.

We now know that the story of the enslavement and liberation is not primarily one of white European poacher turned game-keeper, but that resistance in many forms was waged by the enslaved themselves during and after capture. We now know that black people and white people worked tirelessly for an end to that shameful episode in human history. That millions of Africans lost or gave their lives and that many lived to tell their own stories, chief among them Olaudah Equiano. Through the cooperate leadership of government, ecumenical bodies, human rights organisations and individuals, no longer have black children in schools to hang their heads in shame when the see pictures of their enslaved ancestors. Rather they can hold their heads high in the knowledge that their reason they are here is because their fore parents were made of such sturdy stuff, physically and in character that they survived that onslaught of man’s inhumanity to man.

The Church and the Pentecostal Movement
The Black Pentecostal movement forget at our peril the importance of our complex history; a history that unless explained, leaves successive generations rootless and in a crisis of identity. The history of the church, needs to be told, properly, including the little spat back in the 1920s between what we now know as (New Testament) Church of God and Church of God of Prophecy. We cannot any longer afford divisive histories such as those told in Upon this Rock and Like a Mighty Army, which serve to divide us; for only when I had read them both did I get a balanced view of the major dispute that split our forerunners and us today. The historical challenge requires us also to recount the way in which race has played a significant part in our development, dividing Christians along Jim Crow lines, and we need to come clean on how it is that the strong has not always fought for the dignity of our fellow humans and fellow believers in Christ. Of course, our true roots are in Christ, but a lot of subversive transplanting and replanting has taken place, and we need to revise and retell our history, for liberation and clarity, demonstrating whose historic shoulders we really do stand on. Some tough historical questions need asking and answering; like how and why was William Seymour abandoned by the movement he established? Why was it that as late as 1958 Oliver Lyseight’s appointment as National Overseer required a change in the governance regulations of Church of God, Cleveland? We have a history challenge to respond to.

2) The Theological Challenge
A second challenge before us is a theological one. Some years ago I mentioned to a fellow young brother that I was contemplating studying theology. To this he replied that he did not think we should do theology, we should just stick to the bible. Black Pentecostals need to lose our is theology-phobia. Theology, it has been variously pointed out is what we all do when we reflect upon God and the world God has created. We must never trivialise the need to engage in this reflection properly. If we are going to think about God, we had better think deeply and well. If we are going to share our thoughts with others, we had better check and double check that what we are saying is as correct as we know how to make it. Never forget, it is truth that sets people free, not well-rehearsed dogma. As Paul told Timothy, ‘(study KJV) be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth’ (2 Tim 2.15). James Cone states that,
Theology is the critical side of faith, and without it faith loses its distinctive identity…if a church has no theologians, then it cannot be genuinely self-critical and thereby seek to overcome its shortcomings and weaknesses. Black churches have not encouraged the development of theology alongside strong emphasis on preaching.

Cone speaks here in rather exclusive terms, and his focus is the Black Church in the United States. However, there is a strong resonance with the Black Pentecostal church in Britain. It certainly chimes with my experience. But we should trust our own more, not less, to critique ourselves. This way we build confidence and trust.

Theology in the academy: the external challenge
The theology challenge we face is both external and internal. Our greatest fear seems linked to academic theological studies. I understand the fear, especially after I heard the joke about the young priest who took his bible with him as he went to Oxford to study theology and graduated wondering what to do with it! But we need to bridge the gap between us in the church and our colleagues in the academy, especially those in the field of Black Theology. There is in Britain a thriving Black Theology community that operates at arms length from Black Pentecostal leadership. I know because I have been there at some important points in our journey, including my spell as founding Chair of the Journal of Black Theology in Britain, launched in 1998. We have tried in vain to attract Black Pentecostals to subscribe to the journal or write in it. The Journal has now gone international, published three times a year, and is recognised as the main vehicle of Black theological thought in the world, and it comes out of Britain. I am desperate for the Black Pentecostal community to take ownership of it. It probably does not help the cause when the current editor of the Journal suggests that the theological work done by ‘Black evangelicals’ fall into the realm of ‘Black Christian religious experience’, not Black theology. According to Reddie, ‘Black Christian religious experience’ is a ‘folk orientated approach’ which whilst it arises from the Black experience does not necessarily have a political or explicitly transformative agenda; or sees blackness as a primary hermeneutical lens for re-interpreting the Christian faith. This, he argues, puts us at odds with Black theology which begins with the material reality of the Black experience as its point of departure. There clearly is an ideological chasm that requires a bridge. Sitting in both camps, as I try to do, I suggest that a possible way forward is the recognition that the Bible and Black experience are not in opposition, rather they exist in dialectical tension in relation to the person of Christ.

Most probably, it is because Pentecostals have been resistant to structural engagement with academic theology, why the most authoritative theologians in the world on Pentecostalism, such as Professor Walter Hollenweger, are not themselves Pentecostals. It is not that there are no Pentecostals doing theology, or that there is something innately wrong with non-Pentecostals doing Pentecostal theology, but there is here a challenge for us.

Theology in the Church: the internal challenge
It is probably a little unfair but not far from the truth to say that Pentecostals, especially Black Pentecostals, love doctrine, we do not love theology. Doctrines tend to be prescriptive and agreed upon by people long enough ago for us not to have to think things through in our day. We just enforce them, often like the Pharisees and sometimes just as harshly. Unfortunately, a protectionist environment towards doctrines tend to discourage theological investigation and examination. This often leads to blind leaders of the blind where the outcome is not enlightenment and wholeness, rather a falling headlong into the ditch of ignorance and frustration. For example, as Evangelical Christians, we instinctively object to homosexuality, but where do we make the theological case for our objection based on scripture, reason, history, Christian tradition, and divine revelation? Where do we reflect upon the different doctrinal emphases of Charles Fox Parham and William Seymour about initial evidence? Where do we reflect upon prosperity teachings and tithing? What do we make of a two-stage or three-stage salvific process? Is it really the case that all we are allowed to do is passively accept and propagate only that which is handed down from on high, or can we innovate theological reasoning as befitting a people with lively minds and who follow a limitless God that is past finding out? There is need for a space that does more than ascent givens. Guarding the faith implies more than unquestioning guardianship, it implies a rigorous attention to biblical theological truth and a willingness to look again, and again, if the things we have been taught are true (Acts 17.11).

In Britain, Black theologian Robert Beckford has attempted some theological reconstruction of Black Pentecostal theology, focussing on how it can be politicised. Beckford makes the point that Black Pentecostalism is not a unitary system or homogeneous practice, rather, it is a dynamic tradition consisting of a legion of denominations and congregations; with the theological hallmarks of the experience of God, a dynamic spirituality, and empowering worship. This empowering worship however is not matched, in Beckford’s view, by effectiveness in the political and economic spheres. Emmanuel Lartey’s seven-item agenda for Black Theology in Britain is also something for us to consider. Lartey posits the following: i) a biblical hermeneutical task that builds upon Black love of the ‘Word’, ii) a historical task that articulates the trajectories of Black people in the UK, iii) a philosophical and cultural educational task that unearths and articulates African and Asian philosophies, iv) a socio-economic task that emphasises the holistic nature of humanity, v) a political task that is committed to the struggle for justice, vi) a psychological task that connects with Black understanding thereby raising self-esteem leading to good mental health, vii) an aesthetic task that promotes black arts in music, drama, dance, film and iconography.

I believe formal theological and ministerial training to be of the utmost importance, not just for the benefit of a piece of paper, but for a much higher purpose. Writing at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the African American W E B DuBois, reflecting upon the role of education in the rehabilitation of the Negro Race (sic) after the trauma of enslavement, reminds us about the real purpose of education and training. He describes the need for ‘an education that encourages aspiration that sets the loftiest of ideals and seeks as an end culture and character. My call is for home grown theologians to be encouraged to emerge from within the Black Pentecostal movement, people who are liberated to reflect and write, critically, people of such character that they assist in the process of developing an authentic Black British Pentecostal theology that helps us to remain as relevant in the 21st century as we were in the 20th. Here I note the words of Bishop Eric Brown in the prospectus, ‘to lead effectively in the 21st Century, leaders must be trained and well disciplined’.

3) The Ecclesiological Challenge
Another challenge that faces us is the ecclesiological one. Ecclesiology concerns the shape of church and according to Alister McGrath, it asks questions like ‘what sort of body is the church?’ The bible offers us many images of the church as a bride, the building of God, the people of God, a holy temple, the body of Christ, and as a multi-membered body (1 Cor 12.12). The early development of this complex entity was racked with controversies and persecution accompanied by rapid growth and expansion. In spite of everything,One accompanying feature of Church over these years, however, is a sense of order, organisation and authority. And whilst we must acknowledge that Black Pentecostalism emerged out of a non-conformist tradition, by people who were expressing both their dissatisfaction with the status quo and, simultaneously, following where God was leading; I do believe we have to ask ourselves if the present shape or shapelessness of Black Pentecostalism in Britain fits the biblical model, marked by diversity within a framework of order. Hans Kung makes the sobering point, all be it from a Roman Catholic perspective, that the nature and form given the church through God's eschatological saving act in Christ, was given it as a responsibility. This nature, he says, must be constantly realized anew and given new form in history by our personal action of faith. A challenge to us is this, how well does what we currently are match the ecclesiological remit of one, holy, catholic and apostolic church?

Permit me to ask another question. Does it seems like ecclesiological discipline that there are so many independent Pentecostal churches operating often in isolation from each other and rest of the Body of Christ? Conservative estimate suggest there are well over 300 differently named churches in Britain servicing the small Black constituency of approximately 2% of the British population, and approximately 6% of the worshipping community. Does this pass for diversity, or fragmentation? The challenge for us is clear, it the task of constructing a spiritual and rational argument for closer working together, and mergers of organisations may be necessary. Pentecostal leadership cannot afford simply stand back and look on at the fragmentation. Someone must be willing to articulate a prophetic vision of our life together, now and in the future that inspires action towards greater unity. Since we are one church, we had better start behaving like it. In a time past in Israel, the sons of Issachar were said to have understanding of their times, to know what Israel ought to do (1 Chr 12.32). Do we?

4) The Ecumenical Challenge
The ecumenical challenge is a major one, and includes, for example Black/Black ecumenism, Black/White and multi-cultural ecumenism, internationalism ecumenism, working with ecumenical agencies, and some would even argue for consideration to be given to inter-faith relations between the three major Abrahamic faiths. We need to act because the unity prayed for by Jesus in John 17 continues to challenge and embarrass us profoundly, and yet I often wonder how much we understand it. In a transcendent sense that which God utters exists; what we are challenged by is how we express and actualise that which already is, but it is difficult to rise above our understanding of what we are trying to do. If, as is often the case, we believe that unity means a single denomination with a single human head, be that the Pope or other, then we will continue strive for what some call the visible unity of the one universal catholic church. If on the other hand we perceive unity as something first and foremost of the spirit, then we focus less on visible disunity as something to fix and work towards keeping the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, in a manner that leaves difference in tact. As Joel Edwards point out, the whole universe is one gigantic symphony of ‘harmonising differences’, from the vast expanse of our galaxies to the individuality of each delicate snowflake.

Unity in diversity is, I believe, implied in Jesus’ prayer, ‘make them one as we are one’. The place we pursue is a place of spiritual maturity and spiritual bondedness, of redeemed diversity, that is devoid of the three traits of divisiveness that mark Sturge highlights; the lack of unity and joined-up mission, the undermining of trust, and the evasion of mutual acceptance. The scriptures put it like this, till we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man. Being one like the godhead is one, is well beyond what a single denomination in the world could bring. We all know only too well how much fussing and fighting go on within our single denominations to believe that that on a grander scale would solve anything! Whatever our theological stance on secondary, even sometimes primary issues, the place we seek is where in spirit we are so much one that the world see you in me and I in you; that the world marvels and say, look, how they love one another.

It is by this that the world will know that we are who we say we are and be led to glorify God. This unity is counter-cultural and counter-intuitive because it crosses and redeems race, culture, clan, nationality and sectarianism. It’s a unity predicated upon the person of Christ as God, Lord of all, the focus of our worship and work. This leadership centre’s task is to assist in raising up ‘a living household (oikos) in which all God's children who have been beaten down or excluded by the powers of this world find their rightful place’. But some ecumenists tell us that the magnitude of our task is illustrated by the fact that ‘the churches involved in the ecumenical movement have not only been divided; they have been divided over what it would mean to be united’.

5)The Social, economic and political Challenge
Some years ago a former National Overseer of the New Testament Church of God, Selwyn Arnold, published the result of his doctoral thesis that examined the church’s response to social responsibility. Arnold challenged the Black Pentecostal Church to hold on to its vigorous belief in the concept of the afterlife whilst simultaneously developing policies, strategies and plans to attend to the everyday issues of people’s lives in the here and now. His thesis was titled, why wait for tomorrow. Echoing Joel Edwards call from an earlier time that we need to both preach to the people on Sunday and accompany them to the police station on Monday when their children get into the trouble, Arnold highlights the image of a minister who could walk into the shops where the drug-pushers were hanging out and would be recognized as someone from the church who was making a difference in the community. Then in 2003 Christian Aid in collaboration with the University of Birmingham published a report titled ‘Am I my brother and sister’s keeper’ to highlight the lack and the possibility of Black Church economic development. Jesus’ example of healing the sick, feeding the hungry, including the excluded and tackling head on oppressive powers seems an excellent pointer to the church’s social, economic and political ministry in the world.

I note that in the early phase of the Black Church in Britain, the charge that we were insular, looking only after or members and then only concerned with social welfare, not political activity, had some veracity. However as Beresford Lewis in a recent unpublished thesis has sought to show, Black church leaders are heavily involved in political engagement. This growing level of engagement in strategic high level politics is emerging in numerous ways, significantly through the work of the Black Christian Leaders Forum. This new forum meets regularly with cabinet ministers and civil servants to advocate for the issues of import to the Black community.

As we look ahead, a key to the Black Pentecostal Church’s socio-economic and political involvement in the world, will be mobilising our members. However, to enable this, members must feel liberated to act. Galatians 5.1 illustrates how Christians easily become unsettled, and are therefore in constant need of guidance and support to stay in the freedom of Christ, freedom the bondage of legalism. Unity and effective engagement in the world can only be achieved when our people realise their freedom in Christ, free from man-made rules, free from fear of self and other, liberated to be who and what God intended each and every one of us to be. Paul puts it simply; ‘it is for freedom that we have been freed’. Here I believe we have a lot to learn from Black and Liberation Theology. James Cone reminds us that freedom is the structure of, and a movement in, historical existence. Freedom has to be real and holistic, true to the past and the future. It’s no good freeing a man from slavery then enslaving him in colonialism; no good freeing him spiritually by giving him the bible whilst enslaving him by using the same bible to coerce him into servitude. The indomitable human spirit that instinctively desires freedom will always protest oppression and enslavement. That is why the enslaved sang,
Oh Freedom! Oh Freedom!
Oh Freedom, I love thee!
And before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free.

If I may cite Cone again, he says freedom expresses God's will to be in relation to his creatures in the social context of their striving for the fulfilment of humanity. Neither can we afford the luxury of narrowness in our reference to humanity – we cannot mean black humanity, since until all are free, none is free. We are called to a universal concept of mission to the world, not just to people who look like us.

6) The Leadership Challenge
As I mentioned before, there is no single definition, type or style of leadership. However, for me the stand-out feature of leadership is the ability to lead people into a fruitful future. People are always asking where are we going? Where are you taking us? And so, a key challenge for Black Pentecostal leadership is the vision thing. The wisdom literature says simply, where there is no vision, the people perish (KJV), or where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint (NKJV). That is, if we do not help people understand their context, their present and their future, they will behave with carelessness and abandonment. It is the discipline of the task or the journey that keeps us focussed and productive.

Another aspect of leadership that challenges us was highlighted in limited research I commissioned in 2005. This showed that although our membership is overwhelmingly female our pastoral ministry is overwhelmingly male, 83%. Probably even more alarming was the revelation that only 3% of pastoral ministry was under 40 years old, a whopping 80%between 40 and 65 years old, and 17% over 65. These statistics, if true, signal real questions about succession planning. Our traditional system of leaders emerging and then being home trained leaves too much variability in the system. This needs to be supplemented by a commitment to high level training and development programmes, with our top leaders mentoring others who are emerging and those in office. It is no coincidence that the great leaders of our time are educated people: Martin Luther King, with an earned doctorate; Nelson Mandela, a lawyer; Barack Obama, a lawyer; Condoleeza Rice, with an earned PhD; Diane Abbot, Baroness Amos, Baroness Scotland, David Lammy, Joel Edwards, and more, are university graduates. It’s OK to get your education at the cross, but you must then go on to study and train. So, as our pioneers go off the stage one by one, where are their replacements?

7) The Missiological Challenge
The seventh challenge I suggest lie before us is one concerning mission. I have never forgotten the many leaders I interviewed during my PhD research, who declared unequivocally that they believe God had brought Black Christians to Britain to bring about revival in a country in which the Christian church was in, or heading towards, an apostate state. Sadly, sixty years on it does not appear that mainstream Christianity has been rescued, but our mission to hold the bible high, resist racism and refuse to compromise the gospel as we understood it was and is very clear. Clear too was our sense of mission to seek out and rescue the lost from amongst us. Oliver Lyseight for example, makes clear in his autobiography that he was personally quite comfortable, but it was observing his fellow Caribbean people with no where to worship that motivated him to start the mission in Wolverhampton. However, having now passed that formative stage of mission, our membership now grows from immigration and migration, not from converts from the mainstream population. The question is, what shape must the ministry of the Black Pentecostal church be to be effective and relevant in the 21st Century?

Mark Sturge devotes a section of his book, ‘Look what the lord has done’ to discussing the future of Black majority churches. He concludes that he does not know what the future holds for this genre of church; no body knows or can know. I suggest that whilst the future is in God's mind, it may be permissible to say that the future of Black Pentecostal churches depend on their missiological positioning. Having initiated churches that did not exist in Britain before, and by so doing, rescued people who did not find a home, or did not desire one in the historic churches, the second phase of our existence has been to become more sociologically, economically and politically secured and relevant. However, I suggest that a third phase of our churches development ought to be mainstreaming ourselves so that we minister to, and draw following, from non-black, non African and non Caribbean heritage communities. A mission predicated on a gospel and ministry to the world rather than one that is ethnic specific is more likely to underwrite our future existence in an increasingly sceptical and unbelieving western world. We cannot continued to fish among 2% of all the fish in the sea!

Conclusion
I have tried to set out some of the challenges that face the leadership of the Black Pentecostal Churches in the UK. In the face of all of these, this leadership training centre cannot afford to think and build small. It cannot think only of the New Testament Church of God, or of the Black Pentecostal churches alone, but think of providing a ministry to the church on a whole. For Black Pentecostal Leadership in the 21st Century, the task amount to this: ‘preparing God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Eph 4.12,13 NIV). It is a tall order; are we up to it?