How could it be that his girlfriend and eventual spouse was instrumental in bringing him to a solid confession in God's Word, taught in Lutheranism? As now Director of Black/African Ministry for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Rev. Roosevelt Gray came from a time as a youth where he did not truly understand the Gospel promise, that through His suffering, death and resurrection, Jesus did it all. Jesus exchanged man's sinful nature with perfect righteousness. Join Dave Schultz in his conversation with Rev. Gray about a caring ministry among the Black populations of America.

The following program is sponsored by Evangelical Life Ministries.

Welcome to Engaging Truth, the manifestation of God's Word and the lives of people around us. Join us each week as we explore the impact of his message of spiritual renewal from the lesson of Forgiveness Forged and the crucible of divorce, to the message of salvation learned by an executioner from a condemned killer to the gift of freedom found in the rescue of victims of human trafficking. This is God's Truth in Action.

Welcome to Engaging Truth. This is Dave Schultz, your host for this particular program. I have a guess that I'm gonna be interviewing for a few minutes, and I've known him for a long time, but I've not seen him for years except this morning on the Zoom recording. Welcome Pastor Roosevelt Gray.

Thank you, Dave, this wonderful being with you.

I know that you and I crossed paths years ago, um, when we were both in Houston, and I'm still here and I'm gonna probably end my days here in Houston as, uh, as as you did some years ago. And when you Wow.

Gone from here. I was there from, yeah, I vicker at Mount Cav Lutheran Church from 86 to, uh, 87. Went back and finished my Masters of Divinity and came back in pass of that congregation.

Now that you've just mentioned that, tell me a little bit about Pastor Gray.

Well, uh, I grew up, uh, a e African Episcopal in Baptist. My parents were from a toga, Alabama, and they grew up ame. And when they moved to Montgomery, where I was born in Montgomery, I'm the last of eight kids. They, uh, they, they somewhat moved their membership to the Baptist church. And, uh, and I grew up pretty much, uh, Baptist through a high school, but then attend church very much because my parents didn't, didn't really go to church with, with me. I was the youngest of eight in the family. My sister and I, we used to go to church together. She's three years older than me. But what I could hear when I was that young is that God was just the law giver and that he was angry. And I can remember, uh, uh, those words that people used to quote centers in the hands of an angry God.

Yeah. And then the other one, uh, centers your hands are too short to box with God, . And that used to scare me to death. Yeah. So Dave, I, I used to go up to that church at a very young age and come home and was just scared to death. But I didn't know how to talk to my parents about God. And because if I told my dad, the preacher said that I was the sinner going, hell, dad was gonna wanna know church . So, so I pretty much suffer on my own with that whole religious experience and was happy when my dad took me outta church at a young age to go fishing he and brothers on the backs of the Alabama River. But then when I got to college, I met this young lady who was in the band. I was in the band, I played the tuba.

And then I started going to church, and we got married right outta college in 77, went to Jacksonville, Florida to work, and there I came across a Lutheran congregation, St. Paul's. And the first time I truly heard the gospel, and maybe it was cause I was much older, I could understand the gospel. I heard about God's love, It's grace and its mercy. And that changed my life. And my wife and I, we were actively involved in the life of the church. I became a deacon in the church. Uh, we did volunteer youth work, a young adult ministry. And so the pastor one day said, Have you ever thought about being a pastor? And I said, Man, you, you, you, you, you can't be serious. I mean, that's not nothing that I ever thought about before Dave. And, uh, and he said, But I think God has gifted you with some gifts. And so, uh, we went and visited the seminaries and, uh, finally decided to go to Fort Wayne. And now, 34 years later, man, it has been a marvelous journey.

I see that your wife appears to be the greatest influence in your life. Is

That correct? Amen. She was the, the first real spiritual influence that at an older age that had me thinking about what it means to go to church and to be actively involved in the life of the church. Now, when we got to Jacksonville, Florida, we had a Sunday school teacher. She's gone home to be with the Lord Grace Solomon. She was kind of the Sunday school teachers for us young adults. And, and the married couple. She, she, uh, had lost her husband had three, had three sons and a daughter. And she was home alone. And, uh, so we would go by her house, all of us young adults and youth ministry. And she really, really taught us spiritually what it means to be a child of God and God rest her soul. But she was a marvelous lady in the church that really dedicated her life to the church and, and had us to dedicate our lives to the church too.

Isn't isn't it a marvelous thing that there are people who God sends into our lives who become the example for us, the Christ like example that we say, I don't wanna be like that.

Amen. Dave,

Tell me, tell me, how has ministry changed for you in these 34 years?

Well, starting out, you know, all I wanted to be was a parish pastor. That's what I wanted to be. Uh, I was actively involved in St. Paul's Lutheran church there in Jacksonville, Florida. And, and really, uh, I just saw how these dedicated Christians live their lives, and, and they supported young people like myself. And, you know, I was the youngest of all of the deacons, or the oldest as we called them. And these men were like my father. And, and they just, they, they took me on their wings and they just loved on us and cared for for me. And, uh, always had a spiritual, uh, outlook for us and cared for us, uh, physically and reminded us that we were God and that we needed to dedicate our lives. And, and they encouraged me to go to the seminary. And so my first, my first year was, uh, 88.

I was ordained at that church back in Jacksonville in 88. And then I was, uh, installed as Mount Cavalry's pastor in 88, June of 88, July of 88 at least. And then, uh, after that, I served that little mission church for, uh, six years before I went back on staff at the seminary. But what that mission Church taught me now, the seminary taught me theology. It taught me the disciplines of, uh, of, uh, of, of understanding theology from a exegenical standpoint, a historical standpoint, systematic and pastoral. But the church taught me how to be a pastor. The church taught me how to care for troubled souls and lives that were broken by sin and, and broken community. The church just taught me how to do that. Mainly, it taught me through having, having the trust in Christ, in the Holy Spirit prayer, in patience in dealing with sinners.

And as Paul says, whom we are chief, you know that, Dave. But, uh, it taught me how to be a pastor. And we were working with a lot of teen mothers who were getting pregnant at a very young age, Uh, you know, the pandemic of teen pregnancy. And the mother had her child at 15, the child had her child at 15. And so we were trying to work hard at stopping teen pregnancy. And so we, uh, we kind of embedded our lives in that community and really worked hard with these young people and their families to help these young girls from getting pregnant at such an early age. And, uh, and we did a marvelous job there at Mount Calvary to do that. We had those kids involved in all kinds of activities. The Lutheran Women Missionary League, which is a missionary league, and the Lutheran Church helped us to get a van so that we can carry the kids around to different places.

And we got them involved in activities. And my motto to the kids were always this, you can't determine or dictate what family you're born into, but you can determine and dictate your life for, for the future. And so don't let your environment dictate your destiny. It's what I used to tell them. And, uh, let your faith in Christ dictate your destiny. And many of those kids went on and graduated from college and didn't get pregnant and became great citizens. So that was my first encounter with the church down in Jacksonville. But I had learned that, I mean, down in Houston, but I had learned that from Jacksonville being very heavily involved in youth ministry there. And then I was called back to the seminary to go recruit men for ministry. And so I spent about four years on the seminary campus in Fort Wayne, going around the nation recruiting young men and, and, and, uh, second career men for the, for the work of the ministry in seminary education.

And after that, I took a call back to the church in Detroit, Michigan. Now, here's the marvelous thing, Dave, about the church in Detroit, Michigan. I'm sitting in my office one day and I get a call from a young lady that, uh, that was part of the ministry down in, uh, Houston, Texas. And she said, President of the congregation had given me, given, uh, her my name, and she wanted to call me and let, let me know how her life was going. She said, I got good news and I got bad news passed. I said, Well, tell me the good news. She said, A good news is I remember what you said, Don't let my, uh, don't let my community or my family dictate my destiny. And she said, I remember your words. And she said, I went on to college and I'm graduating from college.

Tell me, the gospel is always important to be proclaimed in every culture, but we live in a prevailing secular society today, and it's, it seems to be getting more and more, um, difficult to proclaim that message. How has it affected the black community in, in the proclamation of the message in this secularization of society?

Well, you know, the older generation, they're still connected to the church and to the gospel of all denominations is their kids and their grandkids that have drifted away because, uh, you know, as so many of our young people believe that, uh, what mobility is in, uh, how much money you make and where you live and what your drive and what you wear, and all of those kinds of things. And it's become very hard to reach that generation. And, and so what I'm telling congregations and people that, you know, we gotta be patient with them. We gotta, we gotta mentor and the gospel of Jesus Christ in their lives. And, and many of them may not come to know Jesus as Savior, but they can never say they did not hear the gospel. And we have to constantly be reminded that our task is to share and tell them the good news of the gospel and be Jesus in their lives.

And we pray that somehow, uh, the Holy Spirit would have a breakthrough to get them back to the gospel and back to the church. But Dave, it's a difficult situation. I read a lot of, uh, church demographers and they talk about, uh, this, this emerging generation, you know, and they, they simply say that it's a different generation out there, and we're going to have to figure out how do we deal with them and how do we serve them, and how do we share the good news of the gospel to them? It's gonna be tough. It is going to be tough, but we can't give up on them, Dave. Right? We have the only hope that they need, you know, a quality education is good. Uh, a nice home is good, a great bank account is good, but where do you serve eternity? And that's the ultimate goal that we must share with them.

It's difficult, I must say, I, I, I go around the, the, the nation talking to churches and what I see oftentimes, uh, you know, people my age and older gray hair, uh, parents, grandparents sitting in church wondering why they're kids who are baptized and catechized as Lutherans and Christians are not coming anymore, but wanting their kids to be baptized. And I think maybe we can, we can get back into their lives through their children by baptizing catechizing and investing in another generation. So they can be the catalyst of bringing these, these young adults parents back to the church,

Pastor Gray, um, as director of the Black Ministry of the lcms, how important is evangelism passion today among your people?

Well, I, I think, well, biblically evangelism, it has to be the, the, the core passion that we have. Uh, Jesus, you know, uh, uh, said to the disciples, uh, you know, that wonderful text in Matthew, the 28th chapter as you're going, disciple the nations, baptizing them, teaching them, and, uh, everything that I've taught you and low, I'm with you always to the very end of the age. And Paul, in that, in that book of Romans, that first chapter, talks about the importance of the gospel. As he says that I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God into salvation. It is very important that I tell congregations and leaders that it is very important that we image and we become the icon of the gospel of Christ to the communities in which God has called us to serve. Now, it's not an easy task.

There's a lot of brokenness in these communities, but we cannot give up on communities as the world gives up on communities. We have to constantly be about getting out into these communities, identifying what the felt needs are, telling them the good news of the gospel, and bringing the resources of those communities to the community in which God has called us to serve. And I simply tell people, take a zip code radius in a five mile radius and work at serving that community. And then that community will bring other people from other areas into the congregation. It is the upmost important that we share this good news of the gospel. It is the only hope at the end of the day.

Tell me a story that just brings a special light into your life. There probably a dozens of them, but tell me a story that, that, that just, whenever you think about it, it just kind of brings a special light to you.

Wow. Yeah, there are many stories, but the one that I think of is the story of, uh, of the young family, uh, that we were, that had gotten this van in Houston, Texas. And the van would, we would go to the apartment complex because it had a nice little area there that we would do, uh, games with our kids, do Sunday school, uh, lessons and, and catechesis and, and this young, this young mother who, uh, had two children and she, and she was only a child herself. And, uh, she came over with her two kids and she said, Is it possible that my kids can play with your kids? We noticed that you, you guys come to the park, you have activities, Christian activities, and your kids have fun. Can my two daughters come? And I said, Yes. And so they came and, and uh, every time we go to the park, they would come.

And we did that once a week for these kids on the weekend. Cause we wanted to keep the kids out of trouble and she would bring her kids. And so one day she said, uh, can you all, do you all pick people up for church? And I said, Sure, we do. And she said, We'd love to come to church. And so we had the van in the church and we brought them to church and, and I talked to them about baptism and, and, uh, and, and confirmation. And they, all, three of them got baptized. The mother and the two kids, they all went through confirmation. They became a member of the church, actively involved in the life of the church. And then something happened in the church with her and someone else. And, and I became very upset and angry. And I had said to my elders and pastors that we're gonna have to, she's gonna have to leave. But then they said, No, pastor, we can't do that. If you put her out of the church, the kids go with her and we'll never see anybody else from that apartment complex back to church anymore. And, uh, and we did not, and we kept them in the church, took them through counseling. Those kids graduated from college, and that family stayed in the church.

It's

So, I've seen the power, I have seen the power of the gospel when we dedicated our lives to serve in people in communities.

Those personal relationships that you create in ministry are so vital and important,

So vital.

You know, when a pastor thinks of just being in the office and taking care of, uh, private communion and going into Ladies Guild and, and preaching on Sunday, that it is, it, it's fulfilling, but it's, it's communicating with the people, the message of the gospel, Amen. Ensuring and upbuilding relationships that are so important.

Now, Dave, I don't know which seminar you went to, but I was at Fort Wayne and there was a, there was a, there was a professor there, George Crouse, I don't know if you remember the name, George Crouse. And George used to tell us all the time he was in pastoral care and he did death ministry too. And he said, Gentlemen, he said, You gotta exige the lives of God's people into the word of God and the word of God into the lives of God's people. And he says, I have to remind you this, over and over again, a house and community going past will make a a, a church going people. And I never forgot that, Dave. And so instead of sitting in that little office there, I'd go up to the school, I go to the hospital, I go to the nursing home, I go to the funeral home and I give everybody my card. And I said, I'm the pastor of Mount Caval Lutheran Church. And at that time, we only had two black Lutheran churches in the city. And finally, uh, people started coming to see, and it was building personal relationships. You're right about that.

We can't see around the corner of Pastor Gray. Uh, we don't know what's gonna happen in the future, but you've been at this work of pro declaring the message, proclaiming the message of Christ for all these years, peek around the corner with me. And what do you see as the church, um, develops as the end of the age comes, what do you see?

Well, here's what I see for the church. The world has almost given up on communities and people. There seems to be this idea that, you know, that everybody is getting their own little, little personal, uh, uh, uh, worlds out there. I think the church has to remain in communities. And I think there are three things that the church has to do. Number one, we gotta help educate people and families. We do that well with Christian education. Number two, we gotta be a hope to families and communities with not only telling them what's wrong, but also telling them who's right and, and building those kinds of, uh, ministry opportunities. If, if, if, if our passion is to stop more people from getting a, uh, an abortion, then we need to be of clinics in places where we can bring these young people and families. We need to identify what other felt needs in these communities, and then help find resources to help develop that. We need to learn how to do housing to redevelop communities so that we can do what God has called us to do. I just think the church has to really step up in this 21st century to be the heart and the soul of Christ to these communities.

I must say I've really enjoyed the time together. We only have about a minute and a half left and

All right, then my brother, it would, it seems like it's quite quickly then.

You've been talking for two minutes and it's really been 24 minutes. Uh, Pastor Gray, thank you so much for being with us and God continued to bless you as you serve him with the gifts that you have been given. Um, thank you

So heavenly author.

I close this with prayer and bless my brother Heavenly Father. Thank you for the wisdom that you've given to each one of us in the promises of your holy word and made the joy of our own personal salvation never wa as we continue to build relationships with the people that you have sent to us in the precious and holy name of Jesus. Thank you so much Pastor Gray for being with us. Thank you, my brother, and made Jesus continue to bless your work. And the Holy Spirit will continue to keep you straight and keep you focused upon the only message that saves. And that is Jesus Christ, thank you and goodnight and come back to us again on Engaging Truth. Thank you, my friends. Goodnight

You for listening to this broadcast of Engaging Truth. Be sure to join us each week at this time to help support our ministry. Contact Evangelical Life Ministries, Post Office Box 5 68, Cypress, Texas 7 7 4 1 0, or visit our website@elmhouston.org or find us on Facebook at Evangelical Life Ministries. Thank you.