YeKengalé

Pastor Fitzroy Kerr seems to be getting some elements of the church’s media mandate correct. Ever since Something More announced the presence of Pentecostal Evangelicals on the Jamaican TV screen with the substantial donation of television equipment from Chapel Hill Harvester Church’s Arch Bishop Earl Paulk, then at the height of his ministerial influence emphasizing theological concepts generated in the cauldron of that Presbyterian academic movement spearheaded by the late Rousas J. Rushdoney that would be labeled Christian Reconstructionism … conceptions of the sphere called the ‘Kingdom of God’, envisioned as a much wider conception than the church, to eventually envelope all human civilization, mainly through activity generated from within the church; the gate was opened wide for the eventual participation, especially on ever multiplying Post-Covid platforms in a now techno-savvy general culture, of just about every one of the 8000+ churches and growing by the day that Bishop Neville Owens mentioned in our last Caribbean at the Crossroads public conversation.

While Religious Broadcasting in Jamaica has certainly been making a growing impact over the last 40 years, now with the establishment of multiple local religious networks, one of which (MTM) has the distinction of being the most viewed religious cable network in the Caribbean region, and setting its sights ever wider, and higher; the question still needs to be asked and answered: What is the church’s media mandate, whether within such grand schemes of cultural triumph as those spearheaded by the likes of the eventually disgraced Paulk, or others strongly resonating with similarity in the wider spectrum of church associations from Catholic to SDA with no particular desire to identify with the vision and scope of the televangelical pioneers.

What the American CBN and TBN et al pioneers demonstrated was that the future of church ministry within the modern context must wield the new telecommunication technologies effectively to be relevant, much less influential.

In the American space, the success of Pat Robertson’s CBN, the first and perhaps most focussed of the international US- based charismatic/pentecostal networks, with its massive socio-political impact within a generation (the direction and worth of which remain open to debate) certainly derives from its faithfulness to a non- overtly religious format which had appeal for those of both religious and non religious orientation. Central to this philosophy was the intent to take and hold broadcast time on secular local and cable channels, even while keeping its church-based audiences on the new Christian networks happy. Most other networks succumbed to an insular vision of preaching to a larger choir with greatly amplified techno-powered tools.

What unfortunately became the norm was for the new technology to become a more powerful microphone for a more religiously divisive pulpit. It was Church-on-TV, giving the less than fervently faithful an additional excuse to avoid whatever discipline was to be had from regular local church participation and allowing for the modern, instant, Christianity-for-Dummies approach to discipleship. The expansive mandate to invade new territory and take new ground was exchanged for a much more diminished mop-up approach to ‘evangelism’:

CBN because of its mostly non religious format – Camera space mostly focussed on pew not pulpit. i.e. exhibiting the evidence of living Christianity by focussing on testimonials mostly from recent or semi recent additions to pews across America. I.e. Lifestyle journalism in search of the presence of Christ in the culture, not in the pastoral pulpit, however strong or celebrated. A much more balanced and effective approach in my view – making the pulpit serve the pew, and the pew serve the nation, each through faithful witness to a living Christ; with the spotlight and camera where it belongs – upon the army of God, not its generals; especially after considering the many tremendous calamities the church’s witness has suffered from the over-exposure of inappropriately putting horse before cart, (yes, I meant that…our God positions end from beginning also) bearing in mind the many Paulk, Baker and Swaggart calamities we have sustained.

Pat Robertson, even with his many personal foul ups, bleeps and blunders, survives essentially in tact, because he mostly got it right: Keep it focussed on the little people. Theirs are the amazing stories that count in public consciousness and credulity; their stories are likely to have much more impact than all of the cleverly crafted sermons from the pulpit, even those fermented in much prayer and piety. Who was it that said, “Preach the gospel always, and where possible, use words”.?

CBN demonstrated that singing, praying and preaching were not the only possible representations of Christian worship and evangelism. News, testimony and non-dramatic, no-histrionics, non watch-me-wield-my-gift, my anointing’s-bigger-than-yours, belief in and allowance for and demonstration of spiritual gifts of knowledge and healing, faithfully executed daily, with an innocuous invitation for modest, structured, reasonable and disciplined / regular / regulated financial support from those whose willingness comes from being truly grateful recipients of real personal spiritual encounters … the fruit of real faith, rather than annoyingly contrived through the unconscionable manipulations of the greedy-for-gain using spiritual practice as a cover for personal ambition.

While there are many aspects of Encounter, Pastor Kerr’s fledgling once-a-month radio special aired on LOVE-FM with video footprint on Youtube under the banner of the Jamaica Association of Full gospel Churches that arguably might not fit the CBN model, the Jamaican context with its 80% population already church-identified may very well resonate with his no-frills, stylized, country-church introductions that brings back childhood associations with Grandma’s God for so many. But it is the meat of the program that certainly is hitting on all cylinders, regardless of the initial eyeballs of under 1000 for now. Great things always start small.

There, expressed in plain street language, as the program’s main content, are the authentic voices of ordinary Jamaican women and men as they tell of their life-transforming encounters with Jesus Christ and His church. Finally, the camera is focussed in the right direction – at the back, not the front of the church, capturing the fresh testimonies of the Acts of the Holy Spirit in contemporary believer’s lives. And finally too, not a hint of middle class makeovers and neo-colonial, foreign-minded, wannabeism parading as Christianity.

Finally, The authentic Jamaican grass roots experience with an authentic grass roots Christ. Mek uu waa blosh blosh. Dem no nuo wa laif iz laik ina di geto. Dem kyaa sing Riil riil riil. Krais suo riil tu mii….mi naa se dat dem no riil, kaas hevribadi laif riil tu dem pon a levl. Bot sortn Jamiekan laif no binuons to sortn uptown piipl …. an dem aredi av di gaspl priich tu dem evri wich wie. So dem aarait. A geto gyal taim fi shain. Hephzibah!

I believe Fitzroy is on the pulse of something most useful to the Jamaican church’s media mandate. I wish him every success as he continues to walk the path of encounter and growth. Take the time to enjoy the episodes. Send the clip to a friend whom you may think will identify with the content. Our generation …. some of us felt a little silly handing out tracts a la JW style, but did it anyway as we thought this was how God wanted us to ‘reach our generation’. Well now it’s so much simpler – send the URL of an episode clip as a ‘textimony’.