Noah Filipiak interviews Pastor Tyler St. Clair about his upcoming church plant on the NW side of Detroit, the neighborhood Tyler and his wife both grew up in. Tyler’s target location is one of the “bad parts” of Detroit, with all of the symptoms of urban poverty ever-present. After being guided to plant in other more financially viable areas, Tyler discusses why he is staying committed to this needy area. Noah and Tyler discuss white privilege and the challenge of ministry fundraising as a black man. They also discuss the lost emphasis Scripture puts on loving and ministering to the poor and the need for the Church to be the body and not hoard all of the resources in suburban areas. They also discuss how a lot of church planting movements want to make it look like they are ministering in the poor parts of Detroit, when they really aren’t. Tyler also shares about a season of his life where he rejected black preaching and theologians, and how God brought him back to his roots and ethnic identity by introducing him to many spiritual giants of the Christian faith who come from the African-American Church.
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Listen to the Tyler St. Clair podcast episode here:
Connect with Tyler:
Email Tyler (tylerstclair@resdetroit.org) about joining his fundraising team (tax-deductible)
Click for Tyler’s Prayer Newsletter, with link at the bottom to subscribe to future Prayer Newsletters (click “Forward” at the very bottom of the Newsletter and enter your email in both email lines)
Resources mentioned in the interview:
Tyler’s Blog Post “Forgetting Giants” about great black theologians of the past
Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith
African American theologians and preachers of the past:
Phillis Wheatley.
Lemuel Haynes
Richard Allen
Gardner C. Taylor
E.K. Bailey
A. Louis Patterson
African American theologians and preachers of the present:
Eric Mason
Tony Evans
Crawford Lorrits
Bryan Lorrits
H.B. Charles Jr. – On Preaching book – H.B. Charles Jr.’s Podcast
Charlie Dates
Robert Smith Jr. – Doctrine that Dances book
James Earl Massey
Related posts:
He is:
Author of Beyond the Battle: A man's guide to his identity in Christ in an oversexualized world
Host of the The Flip Side Podcast
Join an online men's small group led by Noah and team at BeyondTheBattle.net
Thanks again for broadcasting this ministry effort. This challenge is huge.