
The Ministry Exchange with Dr. Mapson
The Ministry Exchange with Dr. Mapson is where real conversations meet real ministry. We tackle the hard questions facing today’s Black Church—from leadership and discipleship to cultural shifts and spiritual relevance. Hosted by Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr., this channel is a space for pastors, ministry leaders, and believers who are ready to reflect, wrestle, and reimagine what church can look like in today’s world.
New episodes drop every other Wednesday with honest insights, thoughtful dialogue, and wisdom from decades of ministry.
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The Ministry Exchange with Dr. Mapson
Ep 03: The Call, The Cost and The Closure: A Journey Through Legacy with Bishop Walter Thomas Sr.
What does it take to finish well—and set others up to begin?
In this powerful episode of The Ministry Exchange, Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr. sits down with his lifelong friend and ministry brother, Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr., Pastor Emeritus of New Psalmist Baptist Church. After 50 years of leading one of the nation’s most influential congregations, Bishop Thomas offers a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the private decisions, personal sacrifices, and prophetic clarity required to lead well—and let go well.
If you’ve ever wrestled with questions like:
- How do I know when my season is ending?
- What does healthy succession actually look like?
- Can the church I’ve built continue without me at the helm?
…this conversation is for you.
Bishop Thomas speaks with deep honesty about transitioning from the pulpit before being forced to, planning a succession that prioritizes the church’s future over personal legacy, and recognizing that your successor isn’t supposed to be your shadow—but their own shepherd.
They reflect on decades of shared friendship, the formative influence of leaders like Dr. Charles Booth and Dr. Harold Carter Sr., and the unique bond that holds Black pastors together through seasons of grief, growth, and change.
You’ll also hear timely wisdom for today’s church:
“The post-COVID church cannot do ministry with a pre-COVID mindset.”
From leadership burnout to pastoral transition, from generational shifts to the sacred trust of legacy—this episode is a masterclass in ministry longevity.
Whether you’re building, leading, or letting go, this exchange will challenge and inspire you.
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Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, and welcome to the Ministry Exchange with Dr Mapson. If you haven't already, I invite you to subscribe so you won't miss any of the episodes released every other Wednesday, along with other updates and insights. Be sure to follow us on social media at Ministry Forward to stay connected. As you already know, this podcast is designed to equip pastors, church leaders and ministries with authentic dialogue and practical insights for today's ever-changing ministry landscape, and whether you're a seasoned pastor, a new church leader or somewhere in between, we want you to know that this space is for you.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:I am delighted today to welcome a longtime friend and colleague in ministry a longtime friend and colleague in ministry, bishop Walter Thomas Sr. Who is now Pastor Emeritus of the great New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore, maryland, where a church, a congregation that he led for 50 years and grew the church to over 9,000 members. He is a visionary leader for worship. He is the CEO of Changes Can Happen, coaching pastors and leaders nationwide. Also, he's the former president of the prestigious Hampton University Ministers Conference. He is the presiding prelate of the Kingdom Association of Covenant Pastors and acclaimed author of the Thread Principle and other ministry books. We welcome you, bishop Thomas. It is very difficult for us during this conversation to call each other by these titles.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:It's been Walter and Jesse for a long, long time and as a colleague, though in ministry, I've admired you from the beginning and what you have done and accomplished over the years and the seasoning not only of your ministry and mine, but of our friendship, which just goes back so far. It's hard to even date it or or count the years you're like methuselah?
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:yeah, I had no beginning.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:It has no end that that's correct, and even even when I picked you up this morning, we just, uh, just jumped right into conversations about uh, we tell we're getting older when most of our conversation is about yesterday. Yes, but we're praying for tomorrow and praying for tomorrow. Yeah, I was thinking about how we met through our dear friend, dr Charles Booth. Charles Booth, we can never have a conversation five minutes without bringing up his name. Yes, and I'm going to come back to him, but our beginning in terms of Hampton University Minister's Conference and we were in our 20s- oh yes, with no money Eating at the open-air market.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, where they would cook steaks. There were no hotels down there except Holiday Inn. Holiday Inn and Strawberry Banks Strawberry Banks, by the river right. But it was a great. I mean, the conference was of such where we left the conference and couldn't wait for the next year.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Oh, and remember we would hang out. The conference was smaller because we met in the chapel, that's right, not as many people, but for us it seemed like it was the tribe of Judah. We'd hang out all night long. Yep, could barely talk by the third day, right, because we'd been up all night long. Yeah. We were together, we'd stroll in together in the chapel, in the chapel, in the hard seat.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:In those hard seats, a beautiful chapel. In the chapel, in the hard seats. In those hard seats, a beautiful chapel. Yes. Ornate small chapel. Then we moved to Ogden Hall and we would sit up in the balcony and watch these giants.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yes.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Preaching lecture Never thinking In awe, never thinking yeah, that we might ever be in the number.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yes, Preaching lecture. Never thinking In awe, never thinking that we might ever be in the number Right, never, never, never crossed our mind, never, never crossed our minds and one by one, each one from our ranks took their opportunity and made their mark.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, yeah. So first it was Wally Smith Yep Lectured on the family because he'd written a book on the black family, so he lectured on the family.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Charles Booth preaching Charles Booth, those inseparable twins Goodness and mercy, Goodness and mercy.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:And when I went back to New Jersey I heard that sermon like 25 times.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Well, you know, hampton did have a borrowing complex. Yes, yeah, it never felt bad to borrow.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Right, because once you delivered it it was in the public domain and you knew that when you put it out there. So I heard the Inseparable Twins at least four times, at least times, and, and then um, you were next, uh, and, and became president when I lectured, I think you, you I was in the ascendancy when you left.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Oh, you were in the in the ascendancy right and you laid them out. Well, we got uh. We still have the, the uh recordings, with you in the you. You in the. You're seated in the pulpit yep, that's right.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yep, yeah, oh, doctor, you were. You were vintage. You were vintage. God blessed it so that each one of us could operate in our gift. Yeah, and maybe because we had no ambition, god could use it as opportunity. Right, because we never sat there saying when they're going to pick me?
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Never, I mean Didn't want to be picked, didn't even think about it, it ain't crossed our mind, never done. But there was some in the background, I think, who made that happen. Oh yeah, you helped make it happen for me, right, you wouldn't say that, but I know that's the case, but I think it. It was our, our turn, and but we didn't consider it like like my turn, like I think there's some sense of that today, like yeah it's it's it's my turn, and I deserve this.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:See, we all believed another thing that we had, and maybe it's still a part of the fabric of up-growing persons now, but maybe we're old and we don't see it. We really believed in the authenticity of each other's gifts. Yeah. We were all so totally different. So totally different. I mean just the four of us. Booth is a philosophical preacher. Wally is that deep voice that is going to ring through the scholastic halls. Yeah.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:You have the breadth of the black church experience. You understood the nuances of worship Me. I don't know what I brought, but I brought something you know and I think I think we all honored and knew that at the, when we got in places of opportunity, we realized we could open the doors for those who we knew brought something to the table.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Right, right, yeah, but you brought, I think, an authenticity when it comes to preaching to the hearts of people and sometimes I would just listen to you and say really, yeah, that's true, that's right, and it resonates with people and, I think, your gift. At some point it just seemed like you just took off in ministry in Baltimore Baltimore's, your hometown pastoring. Born and bred yeah, and you were not Baptist in real life.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I grew up Presbyterian, where we had the confession of faith, the assurance of pardon. We sang the Gloria Patria. Oh yeah, all of that Ain't nobody hollering and screaming. You heard an amen. You went. Where did this come from? We sang, blessed, we lived blessed. Quietness, holy quietness. Yes, and I grew up with sermons. I grew up Presbyterian, where we did not grunt, where we did not groan, and I grew up where the sermons, calvinistic in their direction, were geared toward a lofty consideration and I always thought lofty consideration is great and I always thought lofty consideration is great. But the longer I lived, the more I realized that the gospel message is encroached in story and each of us lives story. So, therefore, the sermon had to charge the mind, but it had to contextualize in where people live Right, and that's your gift when people live.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:And I think when we all listen to each other, we learn something oh God, yeah From each other.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yes, yes, and we listened, we learned, we appreciated and we never compared.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Right, right, right, never compared. And it helped us become better preachers, as colleagues, and better people. Yeah, and there was never a sense of competition or rivalry, which Alan Wallace says you know. He said he knew he was getting old when he started talking about those young preachers. But I think something to be said of a generation where there seems to be a lot of competitiveness with each other, as well as with the previous generation.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Well, part of that, part of that thing, Jesse, is the normal ebb and flow of power and the ebb and flow of ambition and flow of ambition.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Twenty-three years ago I started a conference in Phoenix of preachers, and I started it because young preachers and old preachers were at war. The young preachers felt like the old preachers were denying them opportunity and credibility and the old preachers felt like the youngsters didn't show appropriate respect. So I had fathers and sons in the room and older preachers, younger preachers in the room and we went through it. And it tickled me two years ago because some of these guys had been with us the whole full sweep of these years. Two years ago one of our preachers was talking and he said what bothers me about these young preachers is such and such. And I bust out laughing. He said why are you laughing? I said because 20 years ago that's what we were saying about y'all, yeah, and you were saying about us. It's in those days, in the earlier days, it was the little church and the big church, right. Then it became the big church and the mega church, right.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:And the big preacher and the little preacher.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:The big preacher and the little preacher, yes, which was a fabrication in all of our minds about that, because there is no big, little. The same things we don't like our people doing and saying, sometimes in ministry we're guilty of that, sometimes in ministry we're guilty of that. The jealousy and the big preacher, little preacher, and it hides the humanity of each of us to the point where it hinders relationships which your conference tries to heal, tries to heal, and I also think in terms of our traditional conventions, I think it fills a need that oh yeah.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:And maybe at a time when they were at their height. There were different issues but it was never shifting to the real world and contemporary world. But there were conferences like yours that came up, that tried to do Tried to hear, because you remember this line you got to wait your turn.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yeah, oh God, did we hear that line. You got to wait your turn and it'd be spoke to you by folk whose turn had passed five times ago. You know, you didn't say wait my turn. Man, your turn gone.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yeah, and then person's inability and unwillingness to let go of something out of fear that there's nothing to grab hold of. Yeah, and I think the maturing of life has to be lived within the context of story, to realize that the story doesn't end until the story ends. There's something to be writing all the time and even though we may pass from one chapter to the next, the next chapter is just that a chapter.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, yeah, a chapter yeah let's kind of be woven into this conversation is the influence of your mentor, how you got from Presbyterian Church to the Baptist Church and to Harold Carter. Just talk a little bit about.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:A friend of mine who sang on the choir, sang on Daryl Green. He's a preacher in Baltimore. Yes, he invited me to go to church with him one Sunday. We didn't have call ID and we didn't have any kind of way of identifying who was calling. So that morning, that Sunday morning, I answered the phone and he said you promised to go to church with me this morning. Oh God, if I'd had called ID we wouldn't be sitting in this chair. So my mother decided she wanted to go. I thought, if I asked my mother if she wanted to go and she said no, that I was off the hook. She said yes. I said, oh Jesus.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:So we rode up to this church in East Shiloh, fremont Avenue, fremont Avenue, fremont Avenue, and I had to park in an alley my Mustang, my new Mustang car, in an alley. That did not bode well for my spirit. I walked around to the church and there were acres of folk in there. Yep, I mean, it was jam-packed. I had never seen that many people in church and I had never seen that many people in church glad to be there. Yeah, that was the part that blew my mind. Why are you all glad to be here? Church is a formality and a functionary in life, but you all act like it is an experience to behold.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I heard Harold Carter preach and he preached repentance, the key to life. I've never gotten some. I'd never heard anything like that in my life. I sat on the side, my mother and I sat on the side. He wasn't scheduled to preach. Cornell Talley was scheduled to preach. But Cornell Talley had broken his arm or injured his arm or something baptizing somebody the week before so he couldn't come. So Mary C Frazier, church clerk, said but our pastor, the Reverend Dr Harold Alfonso Carter, the Reverend Dr Harold Alfonso Carter, will be preaching today. It was men's day, so Dr Harold Carter preached and he blew my mind. I said I have to come back, and Thanksgiving week was that week.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I went back that Thursday. It was equally as baffling to see that many people. What baffled me was not just his preaching but the effects of his brief on the people who were in attendance. I knew nothing of who he was. I mean, somebody said he was with Martin King. So you know what did that mean to me? I'm sitting there listening and watching this response and understanding it, because the sermon is evoking a response, not just an intellectual one, but a visceral one. So I go back the next week the first Sunday in December. By then I'm sitting on the front row. Then I go back the second Sunday and.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I join Wow and it becomes Did you intend to join?
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I did when he opened the door to church. Yeah, yeah, I did. I said I didn't know what all of that meant because it was so different from the church, different from your church. Yeah, I was at Booth's house one day and we were listening to a tape and I was not preaching then or anything. I hadn't been to shallow that long. I met Booth through Patricia because Patricia knew Booth. We had all ridden up to Westchester, daryl, brenda, booth and I I mean Patricia and I wrote up to Westchester and I was downstairs listening to tapes with him and he was playing a tape for me of Doc preaching at Grace Baptist Church. And we're listening and they're dying like flies.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:And he says this is when Vaughn was candidating for grace. And I'm sitting there. You know, my father always said my mother too never open your mouth and let folk know you're stupid. So I sat there saying candidating for grace. I thought grace was a free gift, free gift from God. I didn't think you had to candidate for it. How do you candidate for grace? And he said Dad, don't you hear him? I said that's how you candidate for it. I said well, I got grace in the Presbyterian Church. I don't know if I want this grace in the Baptist church. And it was going on I'm talking about Vaughn candidating for grace and then he says and then he became the pastor when they called him and I went oh that must be how Baptists get a church.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:They candidate for a church. Get a church, they candidate for a church. Listening to Hercule over those years, though, was so different from listening to Calvinistic preaching. Doc might not think so. He was a Christologist.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:If you heard Hercule Carter. You were going to hear Christologist but he crouched it in the historical context of the text so that you're hearing story. I don't know if he would consider himself a storyteller, but I considered the gospel that I heard from him to be a gospel that came roaring out of the scriptural story. I meant honey on the ground. Yeah, they were so contextual. So listening to him made me ask questions of the human context in which I lived and in which people lived. When I write sermons I see people yeah, yeah, Right. And so Doc was Doc was Doc gave me a love for finding, for letting the scripture, letting the story tell the story.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Whatever the story of truth is that you're trying to present, let the story tell the story. Sam Proctor helped me with the dialectic in the sense of find the tension in people, Right, Sometimes spoken, sometimes unspoken, and raise it before them. Walter Brueggemann says articulate the pain that people feel and they can't find words to say. And to me that comes out of the tension of the text, the tension of the truth, the truth that I'm living and the truth that faith is trying to tell me.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, yeah. And I think, when you go back to Harold Carter's, one of the things I believe is that when we preach, there are other voices that are speaking through us, that influenced us. So when you're talking about Harold Carter Harold Carter's from Selma, alabama- Selma Alabama. You know the deep south.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Thinking of the wine, wine, wine.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, and was raised in that. In that crucible. Yes, where the Bible came alive in stories and imagination and preachers' imaginations. And he came up with that Every time he preached it was like he was preaching in revival. It was always about you know. It's like oh yeah, we must be saved. I mean, because we tend to lose that in the seminary experience in life in terms of preaching to save people. He wanted people to be saved, doc.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I think in a sense all of us do, but we're in different categories. For example, high schools and colleges and even professional have sports. That's the general title sports. But you've got baseball, football, volleyball, you've got tennis, you've got sports. But you got baseball, football, volleyball, you got tennis, you got golf, you got hockey, you got all these different ones, but it is sport. I think all of us are under the rubric of Christian preacher Carl Carter was a Christologist. I mean, if you hear him preach on anything he coming down the street, jesus saves to the utmost.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:To the utmost.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:If you were to hear FD Washington, you're going to hear doctrine. Or like Winfield Showell in Baltimore, you're going to hear doctrine. You're going to hear that doctrinal voice ringing like a bell and he coming down there at the end of the track. You need the Lord. The doctrine is bringing the son of God made flesh is her car. The truth that the son of man presents is the doctrinal preacher.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:If you listen to Samuel Proctor, you're going to hear the tension that man is living with. That can only be resolved in the proposition that he's putting forward that Jesus is the answer to everything that's going on. So what I saw because what I saw with all the people that he would bring through Shiloh and with my own individual wrestling was that we were all playing sports, but we were all playing a different game in the sport, but the aim was the stands. Whether it's basketball, football, golf or whatever, you're playing for the audience, wherefore we are encompassed by so great a cloud of witnesses. You're playing for the audience, like when you hear James Perkins, you're going to hear the literary you know. When you hear Gardner Taylor, you're going to hear the prince of language and the sense of this boundless historical figure who can speak in Shakespearean language to folk who speak Ebonics and yet understand it, but he come in at the end of it, you're going to know you need his Jesus and I think that was that was something I had to learn, because you know you had mentors, I had mentors.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:If you're not careful, you try to become them, and it is only discovering the sport you play that begins to differentiate you from them. Yeah, but at the same time wedge you to them. Yeah, you know, like Doc, I gained so much from it. I would tell anybody. The thing I miss the most from pastoring is not preaching. It's leading worship.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Oh, I miss leading Well.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Harold Carter was the consummate worship leader. You see what I'm saying and that is in you and in Charles Booth. You see what I'm saying, and that is in you and in Charles Booth. You see where I'm going. He never finished a sermon without an altar call. Oh, because prayer. You know, the prayer tradition of black people was his Doc's going to pray now, doc, he's going to pray in an airport. Hello, if he sees you in an airport, he's going to pray now, man, he's going to pray in an airport.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Hello.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:If he sees you in an airport he's going to pray. Let's have a word of prayer. Let's have a word of prayer. He came to Jersey City to preach at Salem Revival so I went over to his hotel, got him, went to lunch. He wanted to see my church. Elizabeth took him over there. We're in the pulpit. He prayed for me in the pulpit. He believed it. Oh, he lived it and you believed it.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:because he believed it, yes, absolutely, and you saw it evidenced. You saw the fruit that grew on that tree. It evidenced, you saw the fruit that grew on that tree. I mean, I developed a sense of the worship service. I'll go to churches now and I'll see the pastor just get up and give remarks, you know, just in the announcement section, and maybe an altar, I mean the offering appeal and then go straight to the sermon 50 years.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I never did that. 50 years. I'm setting the tone with everything going on. I'm telling the musicians we don't have spots when y'all ain't playing. I need those interludes, andisions and all through the service. I need you to play what comes through your spirit so that it might resonate with mine, or what comes through my spirit. You can grab it and go forward with it. I learned that. I learned the genius of that Yep Sitting there in the 1970 worship, right, of course we don't do worship like that now, right, but in the 1970 worship the framework was laid in me that continued to morph and grow through the years.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, Well, I contend that the pastor is worship leader.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Chief Chief worship leader Absolutely, chief worship leader Absolutely, and doesn't abdicate that role. Right? And you know, I hear preachers will say well, now I haven't met with my musician how do you not meet with the musicians? And they have no clue of what you're preaching. You got an A service and they got a B service.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, no, y'all got to be on the same page yeah, but that that's traced to to harold carter in terms of oh yeah, great. In fact, the great line with he and bill jones was um, well, carter would say about jones, said your preaching ain't going to save nobody. And Jones would say about his preaching well, he's a great worship leader. Yes, yes.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yes.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Not a great preacher, no, he's a great worship leader. Not a great worship leader. But they did that playfully, they were best of friends. But that goes back again to the gifts and your analogy about the sports and originally the four of us playing different sports, but all for the same purpose.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Could none of us sit on the organ and play like you?
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Well, you could.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Oh no.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:No, no, we used to in the old church. Yeah, I could play some stuff, but I couldn't play anything. We would sit there in that organ. Yes, the organ was in false. Yes, if I recall it was in false.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:That's it. That's the way it was Right. Yes, that's the way it was. I could play stuff. I know you could play anything. No, justin, there's a little bit. You can't play. I can get through a hymn. That's about it. I'm glad you think so sparingly about yourself. Well, yeah, but the— Most of us understood how enormous your gift was, but the music, though.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:That helped us to be more aware of not only the place of music in worship, but worship itself.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:But we were also all out of a new musical era where, in the midst of the civil rights experience and in the midst of everything Black folk were dealing with, it had the scent of gospel music. In this regard, we grew up knowing life was tough, but all of our music made us happy. Yeah, even if they sang tough songs, keep on pushing. Can't stopping now. Curtis Mayfield and the Impression yeah, move up a little higher. Remember Our music Nothing but church, and it was hopeful Even in the midst of our struggling reality as black people in America.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:The music we sign Temptations, four Tops, the Dells, martha and the Vandellas, patti, labelle, the Supremes, I mean whoever it was. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, you moving and you gyrating. Gospel music that then began to take on the sound that didn't have just the southern tinge and the urban tinge. Yeah, and I guess that's why I like choir music now gospel choir music, more so than I like CCM and all that stuff. But gospel, black choir music is what I really love.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Fire music is what I really love because it speaks to the pain that we live through, but it speaks it in a triumphalism that we can always triumph. Yeah, we can be happy, not happier in what we're facing, but happy because this ain't going to be a negative ending. And what all of us brought to music. I think of Booth, worship leader, yourself worship leader, me worship leader, wiley in his own right, worship leader, levi, worship leader. All of us understood that music, that that music has a way of setting the table, a way of setting the table and the worship has a way of setting the table for the meal.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:We come in with this word yeah, and the old country preacher, you know who helps set that table. But the Amen Corner, oh, the sisters, yes, who would start? Moaning, moaning. Oh the sisters, yes, who would start moaning?
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Moaning doctor.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:And if you didn't know what that was, you would say oh, that's disrespectful, but the Amen Corner. The women were helping the preacher find his tomb.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:And the interesting thing, that moan that sounded so pathotic had a way, at the same time, of ending with such a crescendo Always, always. And that was the when we started preaching. That was the miracle of our services that they crescendoed. Dr Evans Crawford would say your sermon should never end, should always end on the indicative mood.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, it should always end with this from to yeah, and he talked about homiletical musicality, yes, terms that we don't even use anymore. And Harold Carter had music in his voice, as you Right, he wasn't a hooper One morning, he was a tuner. He was a tuner and there was music in his voice when he got up to say good morning, good morning, I mean it was just, but don't let him come down. That last price. All of that is Southern. And then when he would come down and finish, I used to go where he used to, my dad's from Alabama. So there's so many connections that Alabama, selma University, carter's dad taught at.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Selma my father went to. Selma knew his father so he would have Carter come to Newark in revivals Doc and his head. Yes, packed, and Harold Carter would have music in his voice. And he'd come down to that end and people were there. I don't care yeah.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:And then he'd hit, and soon, one morning, I saw him start at one side of the church and go all the way across to the other because he was musical anyhow and hold that note and I watched them die. How did they die? They died like this Bam bam, bam, bam, bam bam, all across the floor. Yeah, all across the floor yeah. All across the floor.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, yeah, and so again the conversation gets back to Booth too, and it's interesting, I think, that we all call each other by our first name, but we call Booth Booth. I never called him Charles, me neither I don't know why we didn't leave.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:It was always booth, booth just booth.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Wait a minute. Booth booth. Yeah, one of them. Anybody go booth? I had a member booth in my booth ran our revival in elizabeth for like 12 years right like 12 years and one of the ladies there was always called hey. Hey, I'm Booth Booth.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Dr Lennon, that's Booth.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, but we met. When he came to Crozer the last year I had started pastoring in Elizabeth, levi Baldwin kept telling me I got to meet Booth, booth. He was telling Booth he had to meet me. Finally we got to meet and that was the meeting. And then we went to Hampton together. Two cars Wally Smith and Booth rode in the car, me and Levi rode in my car Did you drive?
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Because you always had the latest and the greatest.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:We all drove.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yeah, you had the latest, and I remember when I got my Park Avenue because you had a park.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:I had a flat tire on the way down At the table. I think I had all 13.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I met all y'all at a cookout. I still got the picture.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:You know what You're right.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:All y'all at a cookout. I remember that boy.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:The booth came. I've been pastoring a year. We all started pastoring about the same time. I was 1969. Levi was 70. Booth maybe was 70, 71.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:71 or 72. 71. Because I started, you came along 73 and pastor's 75.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, you were the baby, I was the youngster. Levi was the oldest, you were the baby, right, but he youngster. Levi was the oldest, you were the baby, right, but he came to Levi Benjamin Baldwin yeah, god calls his whole name, levi Benjamin Baldwin. Booth came, did our men's day, preached the drama of deliverance.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I want to talk about no that was 70.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Drama that was 1970.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I remember 1975, Alternatives to Dispatch. I want to talk about Alternatives to Dispatch.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Great voice, a booming deep voice. Yeah, but again the influence Harold Carter. So he preceded you as Harold Carter's assistant.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yeah, he came from Enon and Dr Carter asked if he could come join him at New Shiloh and he went to New Shiloh to work with Dr Carter and the Neighborhood Youth Hour and other programs and when we left Howard he went on to close that. I think Doc recommended him for St Paul Church. Yeah, yes.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:And remember Amos Brown was there and Booth followed Amos and Amos sold Booth his Volkswagen.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:That Louisville yeah.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:That was Amos Brown's Volkswagen and then Booth's first car. Was it a Cutlass? Yeah, the.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Cutlass Salon. Remember that with the open top that you can look at the panels, you can look at white interior, white interior. I went and bought a Cutlass Salon. I was following in my big brother's footsteps. Then, when I rode in your car, I went and got Park Avenue. I followed in your footsteps, your car, I went and got Park Avenue. I found in your footsteps, but Booth was an unusually gifted soul. Now both of us are cut from the Harold Carter mold but we play different sports. Harold Carter plays Christology, Booth you're going to hear undeniably the social struggle and the God of the people who are struggling. How God, the word of the Lord for the people who are struggling in the social environment of oppression.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, that's.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Charles Booth, that's Charles Booth, that's Charles Booth, that's Charles Booth, that's Charles Booth. And I remember, when he died, one of the hardest moments for me. Yeah, I was blessed to be asked by his wife to do his eulogy. His wife was unbelievable in his passing. I mean, she stood by his side. Yes, she did. If it wasn't for her, he'd have been dead long before he died. I believe that, long before he died, I believe that she asked me if I'd do the eulogy and I said yes, and that meant really getting ready to do this eulogy, so I never had time to grieve.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Let me say this there was nobody else who could have done that but you, the two of you, were the best of best. I mean he had a lot of friends because he made everybody feel like you were his friend but you were his best friend, you were his friend but you were his best friend. And Booth and I talked, you know, regularly, but the conversation always came to you in the conversation. So I knew there was nobody that.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:But you and I have been pastoring long enough to know what You'll never take that for granted.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:No, you can't.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:No, you can't. She asked me, she called me me and she said would you do the eulogy? I was so honored, um, I could have run through my wall to, because I knew all the people. Booth knew, yeah, and I knew the caliber of preachers and I think all of us don't put ourselves in the category with anybody else, right? And so I was beyond honored, yeah, but I didn't have any chance to grieve. No, no, it was. And after it was all over, I was out walking, as I did every day, because COVID came the next year. But I was out walking one day. I said God, I don't understand it. Booth preached social justice and he preached against injustice. Mm-hmm.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:And he's dead and nothing has changed. Yeah, the world is still the same cesspool it was. Is this all we have to look forward to? We preach making noise in a wilderness. You know, are we just crying to the darkness? I said he preached hard, all his life on this theme and we about to wind up with a nut for a president and the Lord helped me. He said I didn't call Booth to change the world. He said you're wrong. You think I called him and his preaching to change the world. He said I didn't call you and yours to change the world. I called you to just move the needle. Just move the needle.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:The person who picks up after you will move the needle a little further. Yeah. That's all you, he said. Don't deceive yourself, right? You only called to move the needle, and he moved the needle.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:He offered hope for people. Yes. He would come night after night. Doc, now you know he could roll it for an hour.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Well, I do know I an hour. I do know, I do know, I do know he rolled mine for an hour. He rolled it for an hour. We would always say we get out, depending on what time we put him up, right?
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Right and they go home at 10, 11 o'clock, oh Jesus. And come back the next night. And did he care, did he?
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:care? Absolutely not.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:And he'd sleep until 12 o'clock, yeah, picked me up at 11.30. He never stayed in the hotel when he preached for me. He stayed in the parsonage and we'd come back and stay up half the night.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Oh, stay up half the night when We'd come back and stay up half the night. Oh, stay up half the night. When's somebody going to bring food back, because you know he got to eat. He's going to eat one plate, yeah, one plate. He ain't never going to eat two because he's a restaurant eater. Yeah, and they only serve you one plate in a restaurant.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:So he ate one plate. Yeah Well, I remember that the Lord said I didn't call him to change the world. I said don't get it twisted. Ain't none of y'all going to change the world.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:You just called to move the needle, Move the needle and he made people feel. When he preached, people felt better. Yeah.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:You think of the Kevin Newtons, the Kevin Dudleys, the Donnie Fitzgeralds, the Victor Davises. He moved the needle, the Victor Davises. He moved all of the, all of the young preachers that he helped with their work and helped them to become and move up the ladders. He just moved the. When it's all said and done, jesse, when we close our eyes and we meet God, the only thing God has for us is a future and the only thing left for us is to be remembered for the needle. We move, the people who say what our ministry did to bless their lives and how they continued it in the lives of others. Right, right.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:And Booth moved the needle. I sat next to you at the funeral because I did one of the scriptures and I'm saying to myself, man, how was he going to do this? Because we knew, all of us knew how close the two of you were. I mean, nobody else would have accepted the assignment had you not been. Well, I'm not doing that. That's for Walter Thomas, walter S Thomas, to do.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Did I do all right that day.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:You did and you, you handle it well, um it. You spoke for the preachers, you spoke for us in that, in that eulogy, um, but I'm telling you that death. I'm still like I can't call this, call him again and again. Every time we talk, any time we talk, we got to go to him.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:The African proverb says you're not really dead as long as you're remembered. And we keep Booth alive. You know, part of what grieved me after he died was I didn't sense anybody was talking about him. You know the few of us, but I didn't sense. There was great conversation and that bothered me. I said, lord, you just died. I've forgotten that. But then the Lord said no, you're remembered by those who knew you.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, I remember when he called me to tell me about the cancer he had. Oh God, I'm saying what do I say? I don't know what to say.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Did he tell you what I said?
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:No.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:That's a wonder he called me. I'm sitting on the back porch reading the book the Shack and Booth calls and says I just because I'm the one who told him to go doctor. He was feeling bad and he wasn't getting better. I said no, you need to go to the doctor and have the because you know I'm a certified quack. I said you need to have them dig deeper into this because they're not getting this. Because he had called me and said I got to fly back from California. My voice was out. I said take two Anacin four times a day, I mean across the country, and your voice be fine. But then the next week it was something else. I said no, you need to go to the doctor, something is wrong, something is wrong. And Dr Hicks, who was his physician, who did such great care on him, said I'm going to barrel down on this.
Speaker 3:And he barreled down and I'm sitting on the back porch and Bruce says they say I have multiple myeloma.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yeah, I sat up. I said you got what Multiple myeloma? I said OK, I had a passing knowledge of it and it was not favorable.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:I said this is not good.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:This story doesn't end well. So I went online and started reading stuff. I said, oh Jesus. So I called one of my doctor friends. I said, dr Jerry, I need you to talk to me about multiple myeloma. One of my friends she said, oh Pastor, this one doesn't normally end well. I called Booth back. I said, booth, whatever you do, don't go on the Internet and check nothing. You got a question, call me, I get you the answer, but don't you check nothing out. Yeah, you the answer, but don't you check nothing out. Yeah, yeah. And we've all watched him endure that journey. Yeah, with, with, in his own inimical style, not changing a bit of who he was. No fussing, no mad, contentious, yep, um, but all of that as a defense mechanism to try to keep on going. Yeah, and steadily, man he kept going.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:I mean he was at Progressive Convention Met in Philly that year. He was there, he was there I was here with him. Right, right, I was with him. We went and got cheese steaks, yep, I ain't forgot. We went and got cheese steaks, yep.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I forgot. We went and got cheese steaks. We prayed. I remember calling him and said I'm not going to and Doug. Banks, doug Banks.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Was his son in the ministry. Loved you, just loved you, still loves you.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I called him and said I'm not going to have you do all three nights this year. What are you talking?
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:about. I said no, You're going to do two. I said you can do the first and third, or the first and second, but you're not doing three. I said you can take the third and rest here and whatever I said, but you're not doing three. I said if you want to kill yourself, you have to do it by yourself. I am not joining you. I said I'm not going to participate in this. You're going to do two. I can handle three, said then that means you'll do well with two, but you're not going to do three. Because he had gotten really sick before that. Um, and then I. Then it went to one night. I remember the last time he preached for one night yeah yeah, oh, I remember, I remember the week he died.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yeah, there's some memories. I think that become coffee table books and that's one for me. Mm-hmm. If I sit at the table, if I sit at that coffee table, I'm going to see that book. That whole week Patricia and I flew out there. His wife called me on Friday and said what's your plans for the weekend or next week? I said nothing. Pretty clear she said I think you need to come see your friend. Hmm.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I was at the driveway of the church, backing out of the garage and I know what it meant and I couldn't get a plane for the weekend. There were no planes, every plane was booked, so I couldn't get a plane for the weekend. There were no planes, every plane was booked, so I couldn't get a plane. So I said Tricia, we're going to fly out Monday morning. We flew out Monday morning, got there early 8 o'clock, got to the hospital and they were talking about stepping him down out of intensive care. So I said he must be better, he must be doing better. And Crystal said yeah, they're talking about. She said but they got a little infection they want to treat before they do that. I said okay, and we had gone around about that infection. So we talked, we stayed all day long and he and I sat in the room and we talked. He dressed in towels, looking like Mahatma Gandhi, and we just talked all day long. And then came time to leave and he said these words to me as I was leaving. Last thing he said to me his last words when do you think I'm getting out of here? I said well, they were going to move you today, step you down out of intensive care. So I would say they're going to probably move you tomorrow so you may be home by Wednesday. We left, caught the plane, went home, wonderful visit. I said he doing good, he going to come back from this.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:An hour after being home his wife called and said he done gone to a place we cannot get him back from. The next day she called and said it's worse. And Wednesday she called and said they give me an option I can take him home or I can leave him here. I'm standing in the closet of my church getting ready to go down for initial sermons and she says I can take you. I said what do you want to do? She said I want to take him home. I said then call all his friends that are local Local, yeah and tell them to come to the hospital before you take him home, because when you take him home he belongs to you. Right.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:So she took him home and the rest was history. Yeah. Yeah that, Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, that, but he was our prince. Godman.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Taylor was the prince of preachers for the old age, but he was our prince.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, it was rolling when they rolled him out of the church after the funeral from the door to the hearses. That's when it got me that he's gone Up until then.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:he was like but that was a when they put him up in the air, and put that thing or sealing that thing up.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yeah, that's when I said I didn't go to that. Oh, doctor, it got you where it got you, that's why you didn't go. It didn't get me there, it got me there. That's why I couldn't go no way after that. Yeah, yeah, because then I knew, as Dwight Walker says, at the end of Malcolm X, the man you knew, as Malcolm X, is no more the man we knew, yeah, and I also said.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:I said this will probably be the last time I see mine, all of it.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yes, I'll say, that was. Yeah, we all said that.
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Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:It— and we've seen enough brings us to again the old way of transitions, of preachers either dying, nothing's in place, may have worked at one time and may not have. Marvin McMickle was here not long ago and I watched him on the live stream. He said it was right during the time when the Pope had died. And Marvin McMickle said that when the Pope dies, they're going to have his funeral, they're going to mourn. Was it nine days? They're going to come together and more than likely in two days.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:They're going to come together and, more than likely in two days, they're going to elect a new pope to serve 1.4 billion Catholics in the world. He said it takes a black Baptist church two years, 50 members to come, then somebody who voted for you won't put you out in the next year your chief sponsors.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:I think, and I'm seeing more of it now. First of all, our pastors of our generation have packages with benefits that that my dad and his job didn't have.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Right, well, see, the workers in those days didn't have, didn't have it, didn't have. Right, well, see, the workers in those days didn't have it, didn't have it either. There are certain benefits that a corporate reality bring to pastoral packages and the like, but then there is a sense of the uniqueness of the church that the pastor has to always be mindful when he when succession time rolls Right, right.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:And and our friend Booth didn't didn't get a chance to put a process. Obviously he didn't, you know, didn't think he was going to die, but just in terms of your um, um, retirement, just in terms of your retirement and in terms of putting a process in place, which I think is a responsibility of leadership, to have a process in place so that churches don't have to fight in the politics, the power. And J Price Barber, who was Harold Carter's mentor and mine, and Booth's.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:You know he would talk about the calling of a Black Baptist preacher as the most ungodly process.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I'm glad you bring that up. When I thought about my own departure, the metaphor I would use is a song that the Four Tops sang like a bridge over troubled waters. What are the troubled waters that we're building this bridge over? What are the troubled waters that we're building this bridge over? We're building them over a people who will be left wondering if something happens to you. Leadership, there's something, always rises to fill the vacuum of leadership, but that something that always rises to fill the vacuum of leadership isn't always leadership. Yeah.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:And what I knew was that the waters would be troubled if I died. Just by the nature of what happens. I've seen it too many times, yeah.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:And I understand it too much. Somebody has to fill the vacuum that may have been laying in, wait and wait Anyway.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:And then you've got those that feel we should have been headed in another direction, right. And you've got those who have no clue what pastoral ministry is yeah, no clue what pastoral ministry is but think they can direct how it should be done. They have no clue what it's going to be done, how to do it. They're not just coaches on the side who coach a sport they never played. They have no clue what it takes to play the sport you want to call the past and the future. You don't even know what it takes to write a sermon.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:And you had committees that think they're calling a CEO.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yeah.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Not a pastor, Well, even and even in that regard, they don't even know what the what the pastor responsibilities are on the business side of the church. There you go, that you got to compete with. You've got to fix your plant but at the same time you've got to put in ministry programs. You don't have enough staff to do what has to be done. You don't have anyone else helping you raise the money except you, and everybody else wants to tell you how to spend the money you raise. Nobody gave because they liked the other people. They gave because of the vision you put forward. Right, they don't know how to do that kind of vision. And so I'm thinking I was blessed. My vice chair and I went to lunch 10 years ago and we talked about how do we handle the troubled waters, how do we handle it, what do we have to do to be ready? And we laid everything out, all the various scenarios, all the things that had to happen.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:And you trusted that relationship. Oh yes, yes, yes.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:At New Psalmist the phrase I use is we do life together. I had known him. I had known him since before he was married. His children are like my children. I knew him when he dated his wife, who was a member of New Psalmist and he was going to another church. I remember when he got his first main job. So I've known these folk for years, right, and we have mutual respect. I respect what they bring to the table, they respect what I bring to the table, right, right. I didn't want the last memory of New Psalmist, the last memory New Psalmist had of me, to be me dead. I did not want that under any circumstances. I lived under the threat of that before I retired. I do not want them to come in this building on a Sunday morning after my funeral and not have a pastor. And when Pastor Thomas Jr got called to the church and got installed, I breathed the deepest sigh of relief ever because now they have a pastor.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Just like parents don't want to die and leave their mate, you know, just wandering for herself.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:You know I didn't want to do that to the church. Secondly, I love the church more than I love what I do at the church. That's another part of the troubled waters. The troubled waters is what's going to happen to me. What's going to happen to me is secondary to what's going to happen to the church. God called me to take care of his church, to be the under shepherd of his church. He didn't call me to worry about me. He said he'd take care of me.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:And so I had to make New Psalmist my prime concern. I wanted to leave, I was, I was, I wanted to leave at 68, but forces came that made it so it couldn't happen. I couldn't leave during COVID. Right, I could have left, but I kept the passengers feeling safe. But after COVID was over, I knew, I knew it was over and I did. I knew that I didn't have the capacity I had before. I couldn't step in the same river twice. New Psalmist had had its golden era under me. The operative word was had. I couldn't go back and recreate that. I was 73, then I was 40. I was 38 and 40. Then I couldn't go back and do that again, I couldn't call young people to Christ.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I contend if you intend to keep pastoring and you turn gray and get a beard, shave them off. But when you decide I'm going to retire, let them grow. Why? Because young people ain't joining in gray hair. They're just not doing it. They want to join somebody who's doing life with them. Now at New Somers I teach Bible class for the young adults. I'm going to have 70 or 50 to 70 of them out every other week. They come in the Bible class. Pastor Walt Thomas Jr is going to have 10 to 15 join every Sunday. When I preach on Sunday at New Psalmist I do not open the door of the church. I may say the door of the church is open and say Pastor, it's in your hand. Because they're not going to join under me. They see me as somebody who's already arrived. They want to join somebody who's on the journey with them. The only people I'm on the journey with are folks who are 80, 70, 75.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, church ages with you.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Yeah, the young people come to my Bible class because I have arrived and they want to know how'd you do it, what were the things you did? But they want to join for membership somebody who's journeying with them, who's going to bring into the journey the kind of stuff that they want to see happen, the stuff I was bringing in when I was 38, when I was 39, when I was 40, up to about 50 and 60 or something, but now no, and so that helped me to realize. Now, on the one and the best metaphor I can give you for that, I knew I was going to get off the bus and the bus was going to keep on going. That was the real and I think that for many people is tough.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:But that's what you want though.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:And at the same time you have to contextualize it. Remember, life is story. You end this chapter and other ones begin it, I kept saying to myself, because I never got depressed during the process because of certain things I told myself. One was this I can't believe God spent all this energy on a marvelous appetizer, on a tremendous main course to flunk on dessert. Dessert is over there on the table. I just got to go over there and find out which one I want. But it's there.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:That kept me from. What am I going to do? Yeah, I don't want to just do nothing. And see, I don't say stuff like that I don't want to do nothing. It's not a case of doing nothing or something. It's about having different choices. Right.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I got a whole new set of choices now and I live with them set of choices. The emotional response we give ourselves is not, for the moment, Like when people talk about I'm anxious about what I'm going to have, how I'm going to handle this. Let me give an example. The body goes through certain sensations when you're nervous, upset or whatever. Have you ever had moments when you felt like your stomach was in knots? You know your hands. You're doing like this, wringing your hands. You feel like your heart is beating fast. You feel cold or hot.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Now, if the context of that is, you're about to go into the loan officer's office and sign the documents that you have been working hard to get and excited about so you can build a house, build a church, get a car, whatever, what are the emotions that you're really feeling? Tell me the emotions you would say you're feeling. If all of that's going on in your body and you know you're about to walk in there and this man, no, say he's not alone You're going to walk in that room and sign a document and they're going to give you $100,000 cash, no strings attached. What are the emotions you're feeling?
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:I'm tense, all of that, and fearful.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Okay, but now take the same context, Take the same body emotions. You're about to go into the doctor's office and he's going to read you the report from the oncologist about the tumors that they have found in your body. What's the emotions you're feeling?
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:That I might die.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Okay, all the negative emotions are coming in your mind, right, yeah? Now remember this it's the same body experiences, yeah. What's different? The context, context yeah, what the latest studies are showing is that our emotions are not triggers of the past. They are a predictor of how we think the future is going to be. They tell us what we think we're going to live into. So that's why I gave you the two different scenarios the one you're going to get all this money and whatever your body feeling the same way, it's saying the same thing, but it's a different context. You go into the next context. The same chemicals in your body are doing what they're doing, but it's based on that context.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:And what do you feel? Intense, nervous, anxious, and what is? Anxiety, fear of the future, that my future is going to be terrible, I'm not going to be able to make it'm going to die in six months. This and that now. So I made sure I constantly went to work on my contacts. I do these last 18 months. I went to work on my contacts so I never got into that negative context I they're gonna hate me or this is not going to work out. And I never went there. I never went there. Every time I would say, no, god ain't do all this time on an appetizer and a main course and going to flunk on dessert. I'm kind of excited to see what's beyond the rim, what's going to be on the other side of this, because I know our great gospel song that's sung out of the negative but sung with triumphalism. I don't believe he brought me this far to leave me now. When we were young we sang that with that's what carried us through. And now that we're older, you know, got all these new CCM songs and all this other stuff that we sang, that song still work, yes.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:So for me, this whole sense of retirement was a recognition that all I'm called to do is move the needle. And somebody said, well, what's going to happen? What about if this don't work? And I'm only called to do it in my needle. And somebody said, well, what's going to happen? What about if this don't work? And I'm only called to do it in my time? I can't, I can't.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Subject the future. That's true, the future don't belong to me. Yeah, I just did my part when I was on the stage. Yeah, and so I'm, I'm, I'm. I approached this with a sense of awe, wonder and thankfulness that I'm able to be reasonably healthy and I would say to anybody you've got to recognize when the time is coming. My wife had surgery in the season when I wanted to be retired. I had wanted to be retired four years earlier than her surgery. Her surgery compounded or left her with some mobility issues, which makes some of our traveling and whatever difficult. If I had retired early, earlier, there are some things we would have been able to do that are more difficult and challenging now.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:And I think one needs to think of the long sweep of your life that God. God has called us to be able to be presented to him at the end of the journey, not as pastor, but as person. And the real what God is measuring us by is not what we accomplish but how we've grown, how we've grown from where we started to when we close our eyes, and part of that growth is to recognize when to let something go.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, we were talking in the car coming over here about other pastors. We know it's about finishing well. Yeah, you know. And what does that mean? To finish well?
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:What I learned in track and field in high school is what Mr Holloman used to Holliday used to teach us you got to kick at the end. If it's a cross country race, a hundred yard dash or whatever, put on that final kick. Because when you cross thecountry race, 100-yard dash or whatever, put on that final kick. Because when you cross the finish line, you don't want to leave nothing, you want to leave it all on the track. So you see runners in that last lap or whatever, turn on that final kick. Yeah, finishing strong is about knowing when to turn on that kick. You can't turn that kick on in the last 10 feet. You got to turn that kick on early enough to get to the end and finish strong.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I knew in 2013 the day was coming, and so I started then putting my plans in place so that the moment would be able to happen. And then, as I realized that I was going to go out in 2024, at the end of 2024, 2025 for my final moments, I knew I had to conserve for that final kick and I laid it all. When I announced that I was leaving, I was in the process of starting that kick so that folks saw he still got it. He still got it. Why is he leaving now?
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:He's at the top of his game. No, he's in the kick. Yeah. He is leaving it all on the field now. Yeah, he ain't at. No, he know this race has ended. I'd be preaching sermons and midway the sermon the spirit say you sure you don't want to end now. You know you really don't have to go much further because there ain't much left in this tank.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, have you heard the ghost tell you that? And they know what you can do, so you don't have to do it right, yeah, Doc, you be preaching the law of spirit.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:say you can't end on point one.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Point two can be next week. Yeah, and in terms of just coming to the end of a chapter and the beginning of another chapter, and how do you, in terms of a church, selecting a successor? I think that it's partly based on not necessarily calling another me or you as much as it is. What have you seen in me over this journey? The kind of qualities that you would want in a successor? Not me. You're not going to get another me, you shouldn't want another me, but there's hopefully something the kind of pastor I have been in modeling what a shepherd is that you refuse to call somebody who doesn't have Right.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:There are certain components to the soil that shouldn't change. We may plant some different seeds, but the composure or the complexity of the soil should basically stay the same. In the calling of Walter Jr Walter Thomas Jr the church wasn't really calling Walter Thomas Sr 2.0. Right, if God wanted Walter Thomas Sr to still pastor, he'd have given me the tools to keep doing it. I did go bald, so that did help. I could shave this.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Are certain accounts in us that are not interest bearing we only make withdrawals from. One is, I think, the pastoral account of managing all of the stuff that goes on. We don't gain interest on that account, we just make withdrawals. All the fires you got to put out, all of the fights you got to quiet down, all of the disagreements that rise up, all of the financialisms that seem to bust up, those are just withdrawals. There are no deposits made into that and over the years the account gets low and you realize I just don't have it anymore for this. And you realize that once you make overdrafts people don't know what they're going to get. They get you on the wrong day when your account is absolutely gone, coming in to fuss about something and complain about something. They may meet a you they have never met before. You see where I'm coming from? I do, and that's when you know it's time for me to be packing up. There's not enough left here to make withdrawals on. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep finding the statement that releases the tension for everybody else.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Now I'm about to tell you what I really think. So I think there comes a moment when we're looking at who's going to succeed somebody, you have to think about what does the church need now? I knew the church didn't need another me. They did not need another me. I didn't understand that, but I knew that I didn't know. America was going to elect Donald Trump, but having elected Donald Trump, I know they need Walter Jr.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Right, right, I am more of a tactician a tactician, I guess that's the word or I am one who is going to see a big picture and look for a path. So is Walter. He is, he is a feeling person. So am I. I'm a person who wants to order reality, my reality that I'm in. I'm going to structure it. Walter is one who is going to keep looking at what the reality is presenting him and seeing things that I would not see. He's going to have levels of compassion that just are not native to me but they're native to him. That just are not native to me but they're native to him. And it's happening at a time when people in Baltimore are being laid off, being fired. They go to work on Monday making $130,000 a year and get a letter saying you've got to decide by Wednesday whether you want to take an early retirement, whether you want to take your chances with keeping your job or be fired. Yeah, and those are the realities swirling in the world, now in America, now in Baltimore, now in New Salmas communities.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Now, and I think they've called somebody who's sensitive to the pain of members- and that's exactly what I was getting to be the profile of the contemporary pastor, a Walter Jr, who is not a Walter Sr for what he's equipped for for his hour and for this hour in America and for his generation.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:That is so true, and I guess part of what our responsibility is as senior pastors is to help some of those who seek the pastoral ministry before they get it understand what it really is. It is leading people to the house of God, to God's eternal kingdom, by way of earth's temporal hell, and if you think that all you call to do is to preach to them and grow this metropolis of a church, you miss it.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:Yeah, take this sentence that I use Sunday and respond to it. The post-COVID church cannot do church with a pre-COVID mindset.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Oh, yeah, you know the line. I think it was Albert Schweitzer or somebody who said no, Einstein said, the tools we use to get us where we are aren't the tools that will take us where we need to go. There's a whole new mindset. Covid changed a lot. Yes, it did. Covid changed a lot and so many churches are still locked in pre-COVID. And here's the here's the great side of it. A lot of our people are still online. That's a great line here. A lot of our people are still alive. No, online was online before COVID. Some of our churches just got online, but people had hundreds of thousands. Pastors had hundreds of thousands of worshipers online before COVID. But the folk we're talking about now yeah, a lot of my people are online. No, they ain't online. Your people ain't online. No, they just ain't coming to church. The reality of it is, we got to go after the folk who still lost. I know when we came back from COVID, I didn't spend any energy on trying to bring people back who were still online. Right, I spent two years telling them it was okay to be online. And now, all of a sudden, I'm going to tell them no, you got to be here. No, I went after folk who didn't go church and that's where New Somers has been still flooding. And when pastor told me, when I found out this, in fact this morning Fergie told me 500 people have joined in the last like eight months Because he's going after folk who aren't members of anybody's church. He baptized 54 this past Sunday and got no, baptized 85 this past Sunday and got 54 to baptize next month. That blew my mind. What we did before won't take us where we got to go. When we came back from COVID. We didn't baptize every month, no more. We only baptized on special days and we baptized in the Sunday morning service, Right in the middle of the service. We put baptismal pools up Right in the middle of the sanctuary and we baptized in the service, but we only did it like four times a year, Right, but that's let people realize what baptism is and whatever. And folks start coming and now we baptizing. Now we're baptizing. Now we're almost baptizing every month Because we went after folk who didn't know the Lord. There is a new mindset in the land, Mindset in the land. And another thing we've got to consider is we're not going after us.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:When you went to Elizabeth, New Jersey, how old were you 23. I went to New Salmas. I was 25. Everybody was older than us. There were five or six generations above. There were people 70 years old sitting out there listening to us. Now we are the 70 and 80 year olds and there are 12 year olds and 13 year olds listening to us. When I went to New Salmas, everybody was older than me. When I left, there were five generations under me Gen X, millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha and Gen Beta are all under me. They're all under me. For me to think that Gen Z thinks like me is an arrogant presumption. Yeah, the church has to now start asking the question where are the minds of people Right? And for that reason we have to look to folk. Gardner, Taylor, the Lyman Beecher Lectures you sent me the tapes. What did he say of Ezekiel? He is a man of their own coast. What the church has to be doing now.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:The whole point is, I was sending you tapes too.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Doctor, I was Lord and we all sat and listened and called each other oh God, tapes, cassette tapes, doctor, and real to real tapes. But he was a man of their own coast. Yes, this is the if for what we are dealing with, in the broader sense of a change of philosophy. We aren't in the postmodern, we are not in the modern era anymore, we're in the postmodern era. Postmodernity, postmodernity thinks really we're in the pre-Christian era, really we're in the pre-Christian era. We're living in an era to which Jesus came, not left, because folk don't know he even been here. But it's modernity is gone and post-modernity, which started in the second half of the 20th century, has come of age. It is no longer the idea that folk are trying to figure out Postmodernity, for example, postmodernity and development of consciousness.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Level four personality consciousness says that, say, me and my wife are having an argument. Then I learned to start saying I should consider what she says. I'm still holding on to my position and whatever, but I can now listen and consider what she says. That's modernity, where the focus of everything is solid in the one idea that I hold is true, and so this is true. Post-modernity says I listen to what she says, she listened to what I says and I began to start saying I may need to adjust what I think by what she's saying and she may need to adjust what she's thinking by what I'm saying. The absolute truth isn't in my idea, where I just have to accept a little. I just have to learn how to hear what she's saying. That's modernity.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Post-modernity says no, I need to incorporate her into me and that's how these young people think. You know. That's why there's no meta-narrative or meta-truth. You hear lines like I got to live my truth, but people from our era don't even know what that means. I hear people talking about they got to live my truth, but people from our era don't even know what that means.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:I hear people talking about they got to live their truth. I can't stand that. Well, you don't even know what they're saying. Yeah, and for that reason, the stuff we used back then we understood. We understood the music of the age, the philosophy of the age. We read Franz Fanon, we read Eldridge Cleaver, we knew Martin King, we understood all of the great writers and whatever. In that context. These people got a whole new set of stuff. And so we need the people, we need a man of their own coast or woman of their own coast, who is from, who is, who is not at the top of the generational pyramid, who speaks another language, who is an immigrant in all of these cultures and not a native, makes sense it makes a lot of.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:It makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah Well, I tell you, we started talking at the train station when you came to the car.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:And we keep talking at lunch and I'm glad I had the.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:GPS to get me. Oh yeah, here, oh yeah, we would not be here, this podcast would not be taking place. We would have crossed the Ben Franklin Bridge.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:We'd be walking in a Drexel lab talking about are we here?
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:But this has been a great conversation, my friend, my dear friend and brother, for coming and for being on this podcast. You've been very helpful. If today's conversation added value to your ministerial journey, then be sure to subscribe to the Ministry Exchange so you never miss an episode and stay tuned and connected with us on social media at Ministry Forward for more tools and insights and encouragement between episodes. Thank you for being a part of the ministry exchange. Until next time, keep leading and encouraging and serving with purpose and, above all, keep the faith. And again to my dear friend, bishop Walter Thomas, walter Scott Thomas, thank you for being. Thank you, jesse.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:This is an honor to be able to sit down with you in a forum where we get to share not just the length and breadth of the experiences we've had over the years, but we get to share how some of those experiences have shaped us and helped us be who we are and stayed friends that we've always been Always been. As we still keep trying to make it. Now, what car are you driving? Now I got to figure out so I can go home and, you know, copy and get one like yours, you know.
Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr.:Well it's Doc. I remember when I got my Park Avenue I knew I had arrived. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that Park Avenue man. Yep, that was the last word.
Rev. Dr. J. Wendell Mapson Jr.:It was the last word.