good morning. welcome to mosaic. i am ron swisher. it's always a joy and privilege to host mosaic on behalf of my cohost, elizabeth and dale. and our late mentor a few barrels. hugh and i started mentoring together in 1872. elmhurst united methodist church , i was the pastor. he was the pastor of hillside presbyterian church. down the street was allen temple baptist church. the pastor at that time was dr.

j alice smith senior. he was the president of the east oakland clergy. father jean matthews was the vice president. i was the second vice president. he was the secretary. we were mentored by the great senior and all he did. junior, i met later, and had the privilege of marrying junior and his wife elaine. they invited me to their hundredth anniversary of allen temple last year and 47 years now. then moved to fairfield about eight years ago. i heard this buzz going on that you should hear dr. jackie. dr. jackie will preach the paint off the sanctuary. i was there in fairfield. one friday night, i came to the good friday services at david memorial. i don't remember what words he preached eight years ago, but she did leave some paint on the

sanctuary. it was definitely a dynamic electrifying message. today, we are honored to have the senior pastor of allen temple baptist church. the first electorate pastor, a woman pastor, a senior pastor, dr. reverend jaclyn thompson. thank you for being here. >> it is great to be here, thank you for having me. >> thanks for being here. reverend chevron williams and reverend long to make the content because i know you are all over the world. i'm glad you are here. tell us about your calling, because it is phenomenal to have you, the pastor. >> owing to the church or calling to ministry? i am the daughter of a pastor. my father, who recently passed in december, was reverend dr. mt thompson. i didn't know that. >> i have grown up a church grow all my life and went through the things young adults

go through when you question faith, theology and how headlines of the things you are experiencing in life and things happening around the world. i began seeking a diff deeper relationship with god. i started teaching emma clements high school. >> sorry for what they are going through. >> yeah and we need to be in protest about that. but, encountered some kids who i realized, which my desire to go into law and politics is not enough. that they needed a transformation deeper than anything external. the only thing i could impart to them besides what we did in the classroom is what has sustained me up to that point, that was my face and my understanding of who god was and my sense of hope. i started a gospel choir. you know legally you are not supposed to say the name, have bible study in public schools or any of that. so we had character work.

i think it was through that process that the lord began to speaking to me about proclaiming to larger audiences. i didn't realize dr. smith senior had been watching me as well. i went to him and told him i was feeling this burden and i had asked had this experience. i went to hospital gospel. he preached a sermon on june. people running from the gospel. every time he said jonah, i heard jackie. he said if anyone senses a call, comes of the altar. i don't remember walking or getting up, but i was at the altar. i said yes to that sense of god i had and the rest is history. i talked to dr. smith and he said we have been waiting for you. i preach my chart trial sermon probably august of a while. it would have been 25 years ago this year.

>> you are read ready. >> preaching my trial sermon later that year and then immediately moved to dc to go to how was school of india. >> that is exciting. that's an opening segment and will keep us interested all the way. we will come back in a moment. please join us for reverend dr. jackie thompson who is the pastor of allen temple baptist church. a historic church.

welcome back to mosaic. if you. dr. thompson, you had to be excited about her call to ministry. she is pastor of allen baptists church. i was raised at allen temple. i came there when i was 12 years old looking for a church, because i was, for lack of a better phrase, sick of going to doing going to church. that was during the era we went to church all day. there was sunday school, morning service, 3:00 service, you came back to for a 6:00 service. as well, i wasn't making the connection as to why this was occurring and what it meant to my left. luckily i had a mother who wasn't so committed to her church that she didn't think it was important for me to have a relationship with god. he traveled and visited and landed at the boston tea of

allen temple baptist church. the short man got up and preached matthew 28 a through 18 through 20. 12, i understood, the sermon was about the relevance of our face and god and that we were supposed to be doing something, we were not supposed to be sitting in the pews and celebration, i would face should join us to action. so i joined. pastoring there has been surreal. it's my life coming full circle, back to the place where it started. i felt blessed for the opportunity to give back i think the transition process was a bit testy. i think people were surprised because allen temple has been a supporter of women in ministry. i think people can be challenged by the idea of authority. since they never had fema authority, wondering what that

would look like. i have no horror stories to tell. the people have been living, amazing and time, but we are still in our honeymoon stage. >> in the 70s, when i started, i always saw allen temple as a mega church. it is still mega, but how old is the membership? >> we are about 2800 now. >> with people moving out, but still a good number. >> with many churches struggling with attendants, we felt blessed. >> one time we came, you had the center. why were you there? >> their pastor had gone. they were experiencing transition and asking pastors in the city to come support and encourage the people. he was a new pastor. they have been invited me and i hadn't been able to do it. but that particular sunday, knowing that he had left and knowing how important pastoral leadership is, i wanted to come encourage the people.

we as actually just had his sister, lynette hawkinson stevens black history concert this past sunday. >> we heard your great message preserve for a purpose. tell us about that. >> preserve for a purpose was the closing ceremony for black history month to remind african- american people that out of everything we've been through in the success we have experience that god has kept us for a reason. it's not just for us to live in our particular socioeconomic classes, but we have been blessed to be a blessing to other people, and to bring in another generation along with us. so reminding us we were kept this far for a purpose. >> to have the speakers like you did, that was a great idea. >> for me, sometimes black history month can become pigeonholed. we focus on the known superstars

, the mr. kings, the rosa parks, all the names we here before. but we were a people before we were enslaved. we have a rare opportunity to lift what was that history. it is important to make the connection between africans and diaspora in the actual continent. we have members from many of those nations lifted up and want them to feel affirmed as well. >> we definitely felt lifted. tell us your style of preaching. i was not being facetious when i talk about the sanctuary because people were electrified by your preaching. what is your methodology? >> here is a secret the world will now know. i am one of the few who made it through seminary into and take a preaching class. the reason being is because i started preaching life first year. the dean of preaching at howard school university, i preach to his mother-in-law's church. she sent him the tape. when i got back to dc, he said i've heard even around the country preaching.

he said you don't need a class, and he signed me out of it. i think my preaching style has developed over the years and i kind of start with what is the one take away i want people to leave with, and i built the sermon from there. preaching is about transformation. not just transformation of the mind, but transformation of behavior and understanding. i start with a behavioral purpose, that is something dr. thomas, who actually house the only phd in the country on preaching, talked about in his book. in his book, he lifts up a behavioral purpose statement. so, what do you want to be different about the hearers as a result of the engagement? i have taken that as a methodology i built from. >> it said that you have a deep biblical scholarship combined with girlfriend whit. how do you describe that?

>> i am an east oakland girl. in many ways, still down to earth, practical and touchable. i think sometimes in churches, we lose a generation because we are not able to speak to their current day. it is not just a heady approach to the gospel, it is not a bunch of words people can't understand, but actually trying to minister like jesus who walked among the people, who knew the vernacular and tried to make the gospel relevant to them. he knew doing judaism and his formosan tummy he may have learned that is not going to work, so he told parables. his parables are my girlfriend whit. >> we loved coming. >> we are glad to see you, we have to rope you into some things, too. 47 years of wisdom.

>> i just love to receive right now. i'm with brothers to brothers. >> they were a major supporter during the process. >> we are going to take another break and i want to hear more. please join us, dr. thompson.

welcome back to mosaic. you talked about howard. you did a lot of work there in dc. >> i did. >> tell us about that work. >> i left here and 95 and went to howard university school of divinity. i studied under the greats. it really was a renaissance time in terms of theological education. while i was there i served on stella shiloh baptist church, which was a congregation founded by slaves.

served as their youth pastor for a number of years and built that program and model of to scale.'s became nationally recognized. shifted, because dc at that time was not the dc we know today. there were a lot of needs in the community. i wrote a grant for teen mothers that was funded, and i became a director of their family life center foundation, a program that does the outreach services of the church. >> your call to preaching and teaching became prevailed. i'm glad it did. 40 to get your doctor? >> i got my doctorate at fuller in pasadena and african- american leadership. >> that is interesting. that is where you combined the emphasis on our merits and of course what you're doing in the community, too. >> and the transformational role of the church. that was an opportunity for me to blend my concept around the

role of the church in the community and the way it needs to be transformed to reach another generation. we are living in a time for many young people, they are anti-institution, any institution. particularly institutionalized religion. but faith and institutions have brought us this far as a people. we have to figure out how to make them relevant to the next generation coming behind us. >> do you think about running for office yourself? >> that was my desire before ministry. it is not something i think about now, but i am not opposed to it. i think at the time, and now, my influence is greater in this capacity them in political office, but you never know what the future holds. >> one of my predecessors at easter was mayor of richmond. i was pushed a little in that direction, but decided i can only do one job. >> they are very good at it.

right now, i am enjoying this because it gives me the opportunity to critique the things that are wrong. i think when you're actually functioning in office you lose your ability to do that because you are considered part of the institution. right now, i am comfortable with remaining that voice that says have you considered this? have you considered that? there are people who have been left behind. >> my mentor in community organizing was paul cobb. he is still around. >> yes he is, and he is full of rich history as well. >> yes he is. he wanted to be that. he is able to do that with publishing in the oakland columns. >> i am glad to hear that background. do you still seeing? >> a little bit here and there. >> i heard you had a choir you started. >> yeah. as a part of worship, not as an

artist or anything like that. my dad did. he was an artist. >> with all that richness, you felt called for the purpose, you said preserve for the purpose. >> yes, but not for the pastor, i didn't want to pastor. i think i have seen so much. it is a tremendous job. it's a labor-intensive job and never ends. i think again, when god calls you to it, i wanted a specific distinct clear call. i think there is a call to preaching and then there is a call to the pastor because it requires a different skill set. once i was confirmed call was god was calling me to pastor, i undoubtedly said yes. >> you probably heard from 67? >> seven. fema but that didn't count the hours you had to prepare? >> exactly. it really is true when you find what you were born to do, it doesn't feel like.

that is true, even in ministry. >> what is your staff like? i know you have to have some help? >> we do have 60 ministers. we also have staff ministers who cover different areas, like reverend williams. she covers communication. and we will be building out more stuff in the future. >> we saw baptism, but you didn't baptize, it was two or three others. >> it was, it was deacons and other clergy. when you have a large staff, you want to give them opportunity to exercise their gifts. since i was preaching, i didn't want to baptize, run, giles and change clothes. you have 60 minutes to do somebody else, god didn't just call you. it gives them the opportunity to exercise their gifts as well. communion sunday, you will see a lot of ministers leading as well. >> what about memorial services, funerals and weddings? >> they are all divided.

>> do you had to do much at all? >> i do do some. some are divided with the rest of the clergy and staff. >> i was just concerned when i saw so much work. >> i have great help. i stand on the legacy of great leaders who built wonderful organizations and provided opportunities for others. we are just continuing in that vein. >> it sounds like you have great discernment and leadership skills. when it comes to having that large staff, it seems like you are able to manage it pretty well. >> i inherited good people that are already trained. my role is to take them into the next generation and bring another generation along. >> we have one more segment. if there's anything we left out, let's cover it in that segment. >> please join us. dr. thompson.

in this last segment with dr. thompson, we want to look at her entire ministry again. but, alan temple celebrated their 100th anniversary, centennial. tell us about what that was like. >> it was amazing. it was an opportunity for the congregation to reflect on where god had brought them from. it was an opportunity for us to celebrate smith leadership,

because their combined leadership with the father and the son had risen 50 years. we were able to dedicate a street name to j alfred senior. we celebrated the retirement of j alfred smith junior. we hosted some of the best preachers in the nation. all profits in their own right. we celebrated a wonderful gala at the rotunda. it was really an amazing time. it to re-energize the congregation and gave them an opportunity to reconnect. >> do you have many members commuting? >> we do. we have a good number that live in the area. for the most part, we are a commuter church, which is different from when i joined. i joined, many people lived in the neighborhood. now the neighborhood is predominantly hispanic. >> in west oakland, we experienced the same. there is tremendous ministry going on.

my friend and colleague, i mentioned reverend jenkins, is doing great work there. they have to commute, but they stay there and produce. so, in our last minute or so, would you give is the advice for pastors in that urban area and centers, and seeing our members move away, which would you say the best way to galvanize ministry in some way? >> the best way to galvanize ministry is around mission and relationship. the people of alan temple are committed to their mission and one another. it is not just coming in sunday monday morning for celebration. it's everything that happens during the week, whether it's feeding the homeless, dealing with human trafficking, planning activities for outreach and community, that is instilled in our dna. speaking out on behalf of those who are voiceless. the people who are committed to that, there is no distance they

won't drive in order for that to be maintained. in addition, they have maintained relationships with one another. they have been in each other's weddings and have raised each other's children. if you can build ministries that cultivate relationship and connection among your members, and then carry that out to work in the community, i think you will have success. and to remember that suspects not sighs, successes impact. jesus had 12 and he chill changed the world. so, if we keep that in mind, i think we will find good success in urban environments. >> this is left a great successor, thank you for coming. i am glad we got a hold of you. you are a blessing to all the people. throughout your ministry in different parts of the country, i know you have preached and continuing. amen.

thank you for joining us. the lord is our light and salvation, that's my favorite scripture. and we are blessed in the land and of the living, not just when we die. this ministry is full and complete now. dr. thompson adds to that. thank you for being with us, god bless you.

live from the cbs bay area studios this is kpix 5 news .>> an officer involved shooting a berkeley overnight and how police took a robbery suspect into custody and the multiple weapons officers used. dozens of kaiser permanente workers tested positive for coronavirus in san jose and how health officials say that outbreak can be traced back to one christmas event. larry king is in the hospital this morning, 87-year-old has been battling the coronavirus for more than a week. good morning it is sunday. good morning it is sunday, january 3 i am devin fehely, let's start with a check of our weather with meteorologist darren peck.>> a foggy