The Ministry Exchange with Dr. Mapson

Ep 02: Legacy, Ego and the Gospel: A Raw Conversation with Dr. Alyn E. Waller

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What happens when ministry becomes performance—and pastors become personalities?

In this episode of The Ministry Exchange, Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr. sits down with longtime friend and ministry peer Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller, Senior Pastor of Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church in Philadelphia. Together, they confront one of the most urgent questions facing the Black Church today: Have we traded the shepherd’s heart for the spotlight?

Dr. Waller, a fourth-generation preacher raised in a home where legends like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gardner Taylor once gathered, shares how his musical calling eventually yielded to a pastoral assignment at Enon—a church he’s grown to more than 15,000 members across two campuses.

But behind the numbers is a deeper truth: real ministry can’t be manufactured. From celebrity culture in the pulpit to the growing disconnect between Sunday worship and weekday service, this conversation offers a timely challenge: “If you didn’t do anything last week and don’t plan on doing anything next week, why should God show up Sunday morning?”

Dr. Waller and Dr. Mapson wrestle with:

  • The rise of ego-driven leadership and how it threatens the church’s witness
  • Why power structures in ministry often shift from one extreme to the other
  • How justice isn’t optional—it’s biblical
  • What it means to lead a church that doesn’t just “do church,” but lives out the gospel every day

Whether you’re a pastor trying to rebuild trust, a church leader rethinking your ministry’s mission, or someone wrestling with what faithful leadership looks like in this cultural moment—this episode is both a mirror and a map.

Listen in—and discover how generational wisdom can help us move forward without losing what matters most.

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Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

grace and peace to you from god, our father and the lord jesus christ. And, and welcome, uh, welcome, back to ministry exchange with dr mapson. We are seeking to be an authentic and relevant, necessary format and platform for these kinds of discussions that can be helpful to pastors and church leaders and the people that we serve. So, whether you're about leading or serving in ministry or just passionate about leadership, this space is for you. We're here to discuss matters that matter and the challenges that face the contemporary church, always with our focus on the church that we have inherited, without which we would not be the church today, the church that we have inherited, without which we would not be the church today.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

And so I'm delighted to be here today in this second installment, and particularly delighted to have as our special guest the Reverend Dr Alan E Waller, who is the senior pastor of the Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, which is a growing and thriving congregation, and those of us who have been in Philadelphia for any length of time know the impact that he has made, not only in this community but in places all over the nation and all over the world. He's been the senior pastor there since 1994. Enon has two campuses and they serve more than 15,000 members. That's just members, and beyond membership there's a larger Enon family, for which we're grateful in our city because it is a church that is relevant in terms of the gospel and, I think, combines the traditional with the contemporary, and so we're very happy to have him with us. He is a very gifted preacher and we're glad to count him as a friend. Glad to count him as a friend.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Actually, just this past week he led us in our annual revival, spring revival, pre-anniversary spring revival as we are marching toward the celebration of our 200th anniversary next year, and so, Dr Waller, we're delighted to have you.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

Thank you, it's good to be here.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Thank you for being with us. Both of us are PKs, preacher's kids, and I think that your father and mine even though mine may have been older, I think they were part of the same Black church tradition out of which we came. And I want to just kind of start the conversation and talking about the challenges of being a preacher's kid, growing up in an atmosphere where there are expectations, and we know that. I think those of us who are preacher's kids try to make sure that our children are normal, that the congregation treats them normally though they may not, but that's at least what we, because we've been sensitive to the pressure that can be placed upon us to um, to live a certain way, uh, in terms of just just that and and just to share this.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

I grew up, I think, two parts of me wanting I never ran from the ministry Actually, that's what I wanted to do but the other part of me rebelled because I was forced to do certain things in terms of church, and I remember getting on a train in Newark, going to college in Atlanta and saying to myself yes, I'm free, I'll never go to church again. I actually said that First thing I did when I got to college I joined the church right and so when you look at at that journey and the pressure to go into ministry but knowing that you know the Lord has to call you into ministry, you just don't do it because you want to do it In terms of your journey in ministry and and that type of environment, just just just talk to us about what that was like.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

Thank you for that. I am um, I'm kind of what I'm fourth generation pastor in my family. My father was a pastor, my grandfather on my mother's side and my great grandfather on my mother's side Um, my mother's brothers, mother's brothers were clergy, One was a pastor, one was a minister of music. My father's brothers that I knew they were pastors here in Philadelphia JB Waller at National Temple and WH Waller out in Wayne. So I was raised in sort of church culture. The blessing for me was I'm.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

My father was much older when I was born and he had sort of figured it out how to keep his kids together but give them some room. So my older brothers had a much more difficult time dealing with the ministry. I wasn't born until my father was 43. And so he had made his mistakes in ministry and he'd also risen to a level of prominence by the child that got to sit in Martin Luther King's lap. I am the child that really enjoyed being my father's son because he was a pastor of Shiloh in Cleveland. His friends were Odie Hoover and Otis Moss, and those guys.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

I have one tainted memory when one deacon was able to push a vote on my father. He just didn't like my father. He was able to push a vote to the church. You know a church meeting where they're going to vote on whether to keep the pastor. Now my father won the vote, 700 to one, but this deacon, using parliamentary procedure and all that, was able to to push the vote.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

I was 13. I still remember it, yeah, because I remember the anxiety of wondering another church in New Jersey, in Newark, when all of this, whatever it was back then going on, and I remember feeling uneasy because I grew up in the parsonage Right, so there was a lot of that stuff. We made it through that. I was convinced I ain't want no parts of preaching. After that. Right it through that, I was convinced I ain't want no parts of preaching after that.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

And that was around the time that I was becoming an adequate musician. So I knew I wanted no parts of preaching. I love church culture so I wanted to do music and I thought I would then be a musician that did secular music but I would always play in a church because I wanted to be like Richard Smallwood or something like that. But that's, those are my memories. I mean, I don't know anything other than the church culture of living in a parsonage back in the day, when the guest preacher didn't stay in hotels. He was in the room across the hall from me, absolutely, and so I have vivid memories of Gardner Taylor or CW Clark or Wyatt T Walker and those guys. So I've grown up around what some of our peers would call church history. Yes, and I'm blessed by it. Now I don't know that I appreciated how big it was because it was just normal, normal.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's interesting and I think then that makes you and well, me first, but then you kind of the last person, the last, uh, physical link to those giants yes, because yeah those who come after us will have read about them but they didn't touch them, right, that's right.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Never heard them in person, that's right, right, that's right and and so they will, uh, read books about them, maybe not even appreciation the style of preaching that was so rich at that particular time, but you know the pictures that we may have with some of them. I have a letter signed by Dr Taylor Wow, he preached for us in his handwriting. Dr Jace Jackson, who preached at Monumental, and I wonder who will even appreciate that. Who will it be left to to appreciate that? But yeah, I mean personal note. Jb Waller and my dad were friends. Jb Waller pastored Bethel in Westfield, new.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

Jersey, westfield, new Jersey.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

The dad was in Newark. They befriended each other and when Reverend JB came to National Temple I was a student at Crozer. My dad ran his revival. I left the campus on a Friday night to go to the revival to pick him up, to take him home after the revival. Dad's Farsonage was next door.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

Yep.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

And, like you said, we didn't stay in hotel In the South, you couldn't, right, but we stayed. That's how we got to know them, that's right, and to sit at their feet, not knowing who they were, like you said, but just being there. But yeah, I mean, in terms of moving from there, how did you get to Philadelphia? And of course, it's the leading of God always, but there were some events that took place that landed you in Philadelphia, that's right. And just maybe, had those events not taken place, maybe ministry would have taken a different turn.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

Yeah, thank you for that, it really was. You know, depending upon how you want to tell the story, it's either move of God or a lot of nepotism. So I started pastoring in 1990 in Denora, pennsylvania, the First Baptist Church of Denora was in 1991 that the midwinter gathering of the state convention met in Manessen and you know, the state convention came down into Manessen. I'm a new young pastor. I was like 26, getting ready to be 27. So you know, the state convention was still relevant and so I got an opportunity to preach and I preached and my cousins were there Johnson Waller and James Waller and I preached and it opened up the revival circuit for me as a young preacher in Pennsylvania. And so my cousins, johnson and James, they just preached me spring and fall here in Philadelphia.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

I preach for James in the spring revival, I preach for Johnson in the fall revival and in fact Johnson's fall revival was my father's revival. But you know those old guys, they didn't, they wouldn't let you know how sick they were. So my father told me you come with me to do Johnson's revival because he couldn't preach five nights, he had cancer, he, um, he would preach me into in between. So if he preached on Monday night. I preached Tuesday night, he preached Wednesday night, but it was because my two cousins who were pastoring here were pastoring. They had me come preach and then they had the churches come in to hear.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

So what happened with Enon is I was I was preaching at Johnson, the James's church, and it was Enon's night to supply the choir, and that's how I was exposed. But interestingly enough, james brought me up so that Canaan could hear me because Gus Roman hadn't come back yet and the word on Enon was that it was going to close because of the mess that had gone on. But nobody knew that gus roman was coming back in 93 to canaan, right and um, then when I got called to enon, the old guys were telling me that was a mistake to come because it was in pretty bad shape. But the lord kind of blessed it and uh, but I am. I'm grateful for my cousins who looked out for me that's how we got here.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Yes, yes, yes, oh, and always, um, you talk about your father, how he brought you. Always the father's looking out for the son that's right. No, that's right uh, you know, I remember once my dad couldn't go preach someplace in North Jersey, he sent me. He didn't tell the priestess. Yes, and I don't think the preacher liked it, right, you know Right, and I felt a sense of unease. But he sent me and I preached when.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Dan's congregation was there, yep, but he was ill or something, he couldn't go. And those guys they didn't tell you know, they just did it.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

My father did the same thing in Pittsburgh. That's how I got to Pittsburgh. He was on to do the East End Revival. He told me Alan, you come with me so we get up. So Monday night he preaches, tuesday night he stands up and he gets to the mic and you know how those guys talk. He said tonight you will hear me through my loins and he just put me up. It was the East End revival and it was. I mean, the Lord blessed the preaching moment but he didn't ask anybody's permission to do it and just did it.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

I'm grateful but those old guys, they were very sure of a sense of calling and the authority of it, which is different today. It's a lot different and basically they did what they wanted to do because of that. So we were dealing with a father's love for a son and the authority of a father, but also in that same person was the authority of a preacher who was doing what God told him to do. That's right. That's right, processing all of that and we can say, of course, god's hand is on it, but also we give God something to work with and you may not want to say it, but it's through your gifts as a leader, as a preacher and we talk about the music also, hopefully, maybe at another time but being able to navigate what may have been a toxic situation in the church. But turning that whole thing around bringing health and wholeness in the church. But turning that whole thing around bringing health and wholeness and and and looking at what, what has happened, and how God has blessed, blessed you with that, and how the beginnings have helped to shape that your dad, your, the culture, the church culture, men and women in your life who opened doors, and and being able to uh, to know some of the great, what we would call the great preachers of the 20th century.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

And and now a, uh, a daughter who marries a preacher yes, yeah, who, if, if I know preachers daughters, which would have said I never will. That's exactly right, right, yeah. And another daughter who's is preaching Is preaching, that's right. And so the narrative has always been the sons of their fathers preach. And now it's the daughters. It's the daughters, that's right, that's right. And what a blessing that is. And how you did you see that coming?

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

And I didn't see. I'm grateful, my, my, my, both of my daughters have chosen the service industry, meaning they both went to. They have their masters either in social work or counseling to um, they have their masters either in social work or counseling. So I saw that they were going to choose serving people as a as as a life calling. So my daughter, who is now preaching um with me and is my uh pastor of of arts at the church, she has a master's in social work, of arts at the church. She has a master's in social work, msw, and she is a licensed social worker. Uh, my other daughter, who married a pastor, is also a clinical um, family therapist, and so they have chosen that and I'm grateful for that.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

I'm grateful that the difficulties of ministry did not turn them away from people, right Um, cause, you know, I mean church can get on your nerves and people can be mean and as we are moving out of Christendom, the culture doesn't give the deference to clergy, right, that it did when we were growing up, you know. That it did when we were growing up, you know. And so I think my daughters had to negotiate a little more than I had to negotiate, because I grew up with. You can recall this. You remember how we, as clergy, we all had department store percentage cards off yeah.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

Yes, I mean you got 20% off at higby's and macy's absolutely just because your dad was a pastor, because your clergy was your clergy everywhere, yeah that doesn't exist anymore not at any, yeah and so veterans parking spaces that right at lows and everything but pregnant women everything. But if you're a preacher, they make you go to the back.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

But those daughters, you know two things the way you expose them to ministry and maybe some things you did not bring home. So so they continue with at least a healthy. That's right, because some preachers, kids, have been ruined Right, sometimes by our own pain. That's right If we expose that. But then what they're doing is an extension of the gospel in terms of the Exactly, yeah, exactly so. I think that's all taught. Or if you don't tell them it's what they see and witness, that's right, that makes them want to go in that direction.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

But I think you know I honestly believe and I mean this and I'm not trying to sound preachery my worst day in ministry, I still love it.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Yeah.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

Because I honestly believe I was called and I honestly love God's people and I have a good remembrance of the church. I mean that one thing with my dad, but I love the church and I still think it's relevant and I love doing what we do and I understand it comes with a cost and all of that, but I think our children can catch what's in our core. Yeah, and and in our core is loving people Right and doing that, and that's what they've caught.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

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Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Yeah, and do you sense, maybe today and I heard you say at our church it's funny when you said you're no longer one of the younger preachers and when you start saying these young preachers, right, but we do that lovingly, because I think what I see sometimes is that preacher's heart and the shepherd in the preacher is not as important today. So in terms of building relationships, of really loving people, I mean right, and loving people makes the difference. But we see kind of a more transactional would-be king, kind of expecting to be served. That's right and it's part of the religious culture today.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

Well, I think what happened and I lay a lot on our generation because, number one, in seminary there was a move. When I was in seminary there was a move away from poimenics to leadership, because it could be argued that with maybe the generation above us and you're not a whole generation above me, but you are 20 years older than me but it could be argued that we had some pastors who were loving persons but did not move the church anywhere. So you got a wonderful pastor who all the people loved and the building is falling around down him, and so there was this frustration on the part of some people. They wanted more leadership. So then seminaries started producing leaders at the expense of pastoring, and so then this last 30, 35 years of pastoral leadership, we've started to see a leader and the churches have become very leader centric and some of the worst expressions that we took on have become the norms in the young people under us.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

And I actually celebrate being grounded in an old tradition that so you know the our 90s were you all 60s and so the 90s. There was this we were leaning into church culture and preachers were becoming celebrities, and all of that was opening up opportunities, and then you started getting preachers who charged to go preach and had expectations of how you get them there and what kind of water you have to drink, and some of us bought into that, so much so that our excesses have become this young crew's norms and I'm I'm concerned about that and I'm grateful that it could have happened to me, but I had too much of the old school in me. I remember wanting to leave the National Baptist Convention in 1996 when Lyons went to jail and I wanted to go full gospel. I wanted to follow Paul Martin. I wanted to do it. There were just some theological pieces over there that my dad from the grave wouldn't let me do and I'm grateful that I didn't, because that's where some of the excesses that sort of kept me.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

And I think now that we're wrestling with that, I'm not so sure that on our watch, even those of us who are pastoring quote unquote strong churches there's a real, credible question of whether the average black church today is stronger or weaker than its predecessor. We as pastors may have a little more power because the boards around us are not as strong as the boards from 30 years ago because we we intended to kill it. If we'll be honest. Most of us can remember the chairman of the deacon board that gave the pastor the blues. Yeah.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

And our generation came along.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

We said that ain't happening, no more. And we're getting terms. We're doing. You know, there wasn't always terms back there, I don't know. It was for life, it was for life. And we said that's not. They want you to stay for life. They want you to stay for life and we decided to change that. But somewhere in the middle is where church is at its best.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the word mega to me can be misleading, Yep, and I think it's unfair to put that tag on a church just based on size, because I think there's a theology and all of that behind some of that. You have been, we keep talking about tradition. You have remained. Enon is still Enon Baptist Church, Absolutely. Enon is still anchored in a music tradition which, again, we could have a hopefully another that has more than a Hammond B3.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

That's right, right, that's right and and that is intentional on your part when you could have gone the way of uh, nothing against bishops, but you're not Bishop.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

Alan.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Waller and you're not Enon Community Worship Center.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

Right, that's right, and that is because of our tradition and I think that is what has held us. I think that is what has held us. I think that is what has kept us grounded. The term megachurch is not even a theological term, it's a sociological term that people trying to explain what happened in the 90s. Yes, but the 90s it was a decade of bigness.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

You had the dot-com millionaire, you had the housing boom which became a bus, and then it came giga church, and giga church was 10,000 members and those were just sociological ways to describe a thing. Now there were some theological connections to it, you tended to find. But also megachurches tended to replace neighborhoods and not churches. So where you saw most megachurches they were due to suburban sprawl, where people no longer lived in the neighborhood they remember. And the reason that megachurches don't really exist in Philly as much is because Philly is still a city of neighborhoods, so the culture isn't crying for it like in other places. But what you will find is, and what we try to explain to people, is that a large church is really not a church family, it's a church neighborhood, because people who are attracted to the large church may tend to not live in areas where they know their neighbors, and so then it becomes something other than that's at least what has been my experience, and that's at least what has been my experience. But the sad reality is, what also kicked in was prosperity, gospel Name it, claim it, yoke it, choke it, stab it, grab it, and that foolishness.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

And then a number of younger pastors started watching TBN, and TBN would show a worship style, and we assumed that what we saw on TV should be normative for Sunday morning. And it's just not. And you know, we know the tricks with the cameras. You can make 75 people look like a thousand with the right camera angles, and that's what some of this stuff. And now social media. You can get a guy who has way more views than people in the pews, and that's because they just know how to do this stuff right. And um, it's smoke and mirrors in far too many cases, and so I think that we have to critique. We have to critique all of it.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Right.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

And uh, cause we know the Lord is going to critique it Absolutely.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Yeah, the, the social. But that brings me to the social justice. Yes, um, I and I. I never want to say it's a part of ministry or part of the gospel or social justice. Sunday it's black preaching and black church and of course we know that all black churches don't care about social justice. We know that, even in the civil rights movement, all black churches and all black preachers-.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

They didn't like King, they didn't like King.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

That's right. They actually despised him Right. That's right. Among clergy Some him Right.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

That's right Among clergy. Some of it was jealousy, but some of it was also you have no business preaching anything, but you've made well, not made. Social justice is woven into your preaching. But also I heard Marvin McNichol say that we just can't preach social justice sermons. We have to do social justice ministry. That's right and you're doing that. In the remaining time that we have, can you just talk about that and its importance, especially today? And the other day I was thinking to myself. I said suppose we had an Alan Waller in the East, a Jamal Bryant in the South, freddie Haynes and just key influential pastors could really move this needle forward and tell us what, tell the black churches what to do, because it it can be black church led as it was in the sixties, and you get these pastors who are going to come back to their church, which what you say. We would come back to our churches. We're going to do this, whether it's a boycott or whatever it is. But I said a lot, but, but just social justice, what are your thoughts? Where do we?

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

go Well, that that is at the heart of the gospel. I mean, when, when you read the Bible, that what we know about the Bible is it's 66 books written over a 1500 year period. The writer of each book was living under oppression, writing to someone about how to deal with their oppression. So it's either Egyptian oppression or Assyrian oppression or Roman oppression. It's a book that opens up with let my people go. So you're not even preaching the book if you don't connect it to how this is impacting people in their social condition. And I just believe that. I believe that's at the heart of what we were given.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

When you would listen to CAW Clark, when you'd listen to Gardner Taylor, when you'd listen to Alfred Waller, when you'd listen to Dr Mapson, you're hearing a telling these biblical stories but relating them to the oppression of our times, and that's what we're supposed to do. And then we, as preachers, are to give vent. Sometimes we say shocking things because we are echoing what our people are saying, and so we get to say it, they get to say amen and we all feel better just because it was said. So if I stand up and don't say some of this stuff the president is doing is asinine, then my people will not feel that I understand what's going on in their world Absolutely. And if I just claim to praise it away without doing anything politically to aid that, then we're not going to get there.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Yeah, yeah, but the fact that we speak to their pain.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

That's right.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Yeah, and the gospel speaks to their pain Can just in a moment. So some of the things that you're really proud of in terms of what you're doing at Enon, in terms of there's a lot of things, yeah, and we don't have time to do it all now, but just maybe a couple Well, I really celebrate the work that my wife is doing in anti-human trafficking.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

I celebrate the fact that she is helping. This is a modern day slavery that is happening with our children. You know most people when you think human trafficking you are thinking the movie Taken and it's some little white girl being snatched and taken over to Asia to be sold. But human trafficking looks like little black girls here in North and West Philly getting snatched. We have been able to break up attempted prostitution rings around some of the schools in Germantown and Pickett Middle School to be specific. So I'm very proud of that work.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

And when I came to Enon 30 years ago I also came to go to Eastern to do my D-Min in marriage and family counseling. So those first three years, first four years, all my sermons, all my Bible studies were somehow connected to healing of the family. No-transcript proud of that. I'm very excited about being unapologetically youth oriented. We believe the Lord gave us the old temple stadium because we made a commitment to always keeping a youth program football program, baseball, basketball, soccer, track, martial arts and because if the children are here they're not over there being victimized or victimizing. And so that's the stuff that that matters to me and that, I think, is what then feeds into the celebration on Sunday morning, because if you didn't do anything last week and you don't plan on doing anything next week, you should have no expectation that God is going to grace you with God's Shekinah glory presence on Sunday morning.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

What's there to celebrate? Exactly, that's it, that's it. Wow, that's it, that's great. Finally, um, you mentioned at our church and revival again. Um, or I want to say something, okay, but the marriage and family. You don't remember coming to our church years ago I don't know if it was for our church in particular, or association, or something and you talked about the fan family.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

That's right, that's right, that's right. Yeah, on the fans.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

Fans, that's right.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

That's right.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

But you mentioned that in doing revival about the music part of your ministry and how you began in music of your ministry and and how you began in music and and so some preachers said you know you can't mix the two and you're going to be a preacher or singer and all of that and and thank God you didn't listen to that.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

But I'm hoping that if we can get you back, we can spend the next segment just talking about the music and what's going on at at the college eastern and what you're trying to do that is going to enable, further enable the black church, because we all know that preaching in the sermon, in the choir, that's right, that's right so, and I would love to do that, and so what I will do is a teaser right here, and I want you to know that what we're doing, what I am trying to do in music and what we're trying to do at Eastern, is directly connected to what I read in your book in 1982 and 1983.

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller:

With setting me on the trajectory of understanding how to balance music and ministry, because it is your book, music in the Black Church, that inspired me and helped me get it together. When my mother bought that first book I don't know if it was your first book, but it was my exposure to you but it is literally the textbook for what we are now trying to do at Eastern and what I have tried to do with my music ministry. Thank, you.

Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:

We will continue that one, yes, sir, discussion. Well, thank you, dr Waller, for joining us in this empowering, impactful conversation, this empowering, impactful conversation. I'm enjoying it so much that I don't want it to stop, but it must stop right now. We hope that you enjoyed this conversation as well and that you will subscribe to the Ministry Exchange so that you don't miss any future episodes and check out the companion blog post at ministryforwardcom. Also, please follow us on social media, ministry FWD and join our conversation. Thank you for listening to Ministry Exchange with Dr Matson. Continue to keep leading and serving with a shepherd's heart, and God bless you.

People on this episode

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Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.

Host
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Jesse Mapson III

Producer
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Rev. Dr. Marsha Brown-Woodard

Producer