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Speaking @ Christ Second Baptist Church of Long Beach

October 11, 2012 in H.B. Charles Sr., Speaking Engagements with 2 Comments

Wednesday night, I preached for Pastor Welton Pleasant at the Christ Second Baptist Church of Long Beach, CA.

Christ Second Baptist Church is celebrating its 105th church anniversary this month.

Pastor Pleasant, whom I have known for some years, invited me in honor of my father, who pastored the church for ten years, before he was called to Mt. Sinai in Los Angeles.

I remember the first time I preached at Christ Second Baptist. I was 16-years-old boy preacher. It was not long after my father had died. Members greeted me and told me how much I reminded them of my father. That night I learned that my boyhood nickname was originally the nickname Christ Second Baptist had given him when he was their young pastor. I was blown away.

It has been my privilege to preach at Christ Second Baptist many times over the years.

The former pastor, Michael Ealey, invited me to preach the congregation’s 90th anniversary. I still have a commemorative tape series from the event, which includes a recording of one of my father’s messages.

I did not expect anyone to meet anyone who remembered my father’s ministry at Christ Second Baptist this go round. Boy, was I wrong.

A woman greeted me after service whose parents were baptized by my father.

Another woman greeted me whose parents were married by my father.

Then another woman greeted me who joined the church under my father’s ministry. She insisted that she was a younger woman then.

The son of Mr. Hayes, who cut my father’s hair for decades, was present. Mr. Hayes gave me my first haircut, and gave my son his first haircut. His son is a member of Christ Second Baptist.

I praise God for being the beneficiary of such a legacy of Christian ministry.

Some preaching sons find it incredibly difficult to minister in their father’s shadow. I bask in it.

When my father died, I did not get any of his material possessions. But he left me something infinitively more valuable – a good name (Proverbs 22:1).

I pray that the Lord will grant me to live and minister in such a way that, decades from now, someone will be a blessing to my son because of my devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Progressive News

August 8, 2012 in H.B. Charles Sr. with 1 Comment

The Progressive National Baptist Convention is meeting this week in Memphis.

The PNBC was established in the early 1960s, during the Civil Rights Movement. Black Baptists were divided on the role the church should play in the struggle. Those who supported the efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr. established a new, “progressive” convention.

My father was a part of this movement. He was also a part of the group that established the Progressive Convention in California.

This picture is the cover page of a newsletter from my father’s presidency of the Constitutional Baptist Convention of California and Nevada dated April 4, 1966.

My daddy was the man!

Notes from Father’s Day Sunday 2012

June 18, 2012 in Father's Day, H.B. Charles Sr., Notes from Sunday 2012 with 1 Comment

I really enjoyed my Father’s Day yesterday. And we had a great day of worship at Shiloh.

23 years ago, the Lord took my father from labor to refreshment. But I am still benefiting from the 16 years I was privilege to have Dr. H.B. Charles, Sr. in my life.

I was not feeling well for a good stretch of last week Thanks for your prayers and expressions of concern.

Praise God for the one who was baptized yesterday.

I am grateful for all of the guests who joined us for worship yesterday.

Our women’s chorus sung yesterday. Good thing. Crystal Charles was in the choir. Very Bad Thing. I believe the fact that it was not a complete disaster has to mean that Crystal was doing her Milli-Vanilli thing.

Dr. Lloyd C. Blue from Dallas spoke at our Father/Son Prayer Breakfast Saturday morning. He also taught a class during our Sunday school hour. He did a great job in both sessions.

I preached from Psalm 127. I entitled the message, “It All Depends on God.”

I argued this point: Nothing you do in life matters without the favor of God.

Sermon Outline:

I. Your work life begins on God (127:1-2).

II. Your family life begins on God (127:3-5).

I ended the message with a statement to those who have no arrows (children) in their quiver (vv. 4-5). After the second service a sister shared with me that her and her husband tried to have a child for 9 years. Then she introduced me to her adopted son and said, “Sometimes an arrow falls out of someone else’s quiver, and the Lord’s let you pick it up.” I’m still shouting on that one!

Praise God for those who were saved and added to the church.

Yes, I did get my big Father’s Day steak yesterday. Shame on West for suggesting I should have salmon, instead of steak.

The music from Sunday morning was still on Hailey’s mind. On the way home from dinner, she sat in the backseat singing her version of the Andrae Crouch/Marvin Sapp hit: “God is SMOKING, let the church say amen.”

The Miami Heat defeated the OKC Thunder last night to take a 2-1 advantage in the series. LeBron James has a monster game. I really hope he wins both a championship and the finals MVP to silence all the “haters.” (Sorry, I hate the word. But I couldn’t resist using it here.)

Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. defeated Andy Lee by TKO in the seventh round to retain his middleweight belt. At the beginning of his career, I thought Chavez Jr. was a nobody trying to ride on his famous father’s name. I am so glad I was wrong. This is a superstar in the making.

Some unknown guy won the US Open Golf Championship yesterday. The big news is the unexplainable collapse of Tiger Woods in the 3rd and 4th rounds.

NFL running back, LaDainian Tomlinson will sign with the San Diego Chargers today and then retire. He is a surely a first ballot Hall-of-Famer.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. finally won a race yesterday, after a four-year drought. The most celebrated non-story in a long time.

Rodney King died (mysteriously) yesterday in his swimming pool. He was 47-years-old. I do not think Los Angeles has recovered yet from the aftermath of the Rodney King beating.

This week, the SBC will elect its first African-American president, Dr. Fred Luter. Way Cool.

The National Congress of the National Baptist Convention will meet this week in St. Louis. I will be speaking for the Laymen’s Department Tuesday and Wednesday morning.

I am supposed to be a plane today to Paris for The Proclaimer’s Place. Not happening, which is cool with me. But I do hope that will be another opportunity down road.

From Grief to Gratitude on Father’s Day

June 16, 2012 in Father's Day, H.B. Charles Sr., Thanksgiving with 2 Comments

Tomorrow – Father’s Day – will mark 23 years to the day since my father died.

The past several years, Father’s Day has been a downer for me. My wife and children have been kind, generous, and understanding. I appreciate it. But I have missed my dad around this time. I also think that being on the other side of the country, disconnected from my roots in Los Angeles, has exasperated my feelings of sadness.

This year is different.

I approach this coming Father’s Day with gratitude, rather than grief.

The Lord blessed me to have a great dad. I only had him for sixteen years. But I it seems like it was several lifetimes.

I was converted to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ under my father’s preaching. My father baptized me as a follower of Christ. He taught me to love the Lord Jesus, the church, and the word of God. By example and instruction, he also taught me how to study and preach the Bible.

I inherited my love for books from my father. He spent a good portion of every day reading. This was true to the very end of his life. He was a lifelong student. I was only able to get a handful of my father’s books from his library (long story). But at this point in my life, I probably have more books than he did. He would be proud.

My father taught me to be a man. He was strong. At the same time, he was a tender man. He had an intimidating presence. But he treated everyone he met like a long lost friend. He was stubborn. Yet he knew how to admit when he was wrong. He loved clothes and was always sharply dressed (I did not get that gene.). But I cannot count how many times I saw him give clothes away, often before he had the opportunity to wear them.

I often talk about my father in a way that makes it seem like he was perfect. He was far from it. I saw my father make galactic mistakes. And I only saw a sixteen-year slice of his life. Yet I even learned from his mistakes. More specifically, I learned from how I saw him respond to his mistakes. He taught me how to humbly say, “I was wrong.”

I am additionally grateful that my father named me H.B. Charles, Jr. (Yes, that’s my real name.) I have not always been grateful for this mixed blessing. You can’t imagine how much I was teased about my name as a boy (or how much I am still asked about it to this day). I determined that as soon as I was eighteen, I would legally change my name. However, by the time I was eighteen, my father was in heaven. And I considered it the greatest of honors to carry his name. May my son, H.B. Charles III, feel the same way as grows into manhood.

So by God’s grace, I look forward to Father’s Day 2012. And I thank the Lord with all my heart for blessing me to be the son of Dr. H.B. Charles, Sr.

Remember H.B. Charles Sr. (Father’s Day 2011)

June 19, 2011 in Books, Father's Day, H.B. Charles Sr. with 0 Comments

It has been a long weekend for me. And I am not just talking about my hectic schedule over the past several days. I am referring to my consuming thoughts about my father.

My father was funeralized Father’s Day weekend, 1989 – twenty-two years ago.

I trust I will see my father again in glory. This is a comforting assurance for me. Yet there are still times when I still grieve his passing. It happened to me again this weekend.

I think being at my grandmother’s funeral this week did it to me. There was a slide show at the end of the service. And there was a picture of my dad, standing outside my grandparents’ house. There were several other people in the picture. But I did not pay attention to them enough to tell you who they were. All I saw was my father’s big smile. I have been consumed with thoughts of my dad the rest of the week.

Most of my weekend has spent studying and preparing myself to preach. And it has made me think much and long about how my father taught me to love books.

I do not think that my affinity for reading and research came naturally for me. I made friends with books trying to be like my father. He was an avid reader, with a library that consisted of thousands of books. We moved several times over the years. And I remember the biggest priority was always whether a potential home had a suitable place to store his books. I think he would be impressed with the library I have developed over the years.

I do not know what happened to most of my father’s books. But I still have my father’s Bible. It is filled with the study notes in the margins. When I see it, I think about the countless hours my father sat reading and studying that Bible. And it challenges me to spend much time in the word of God.

One evening, I asked my father to help me find a scripture. I quoted it to him: “If my people, who are called by my name, would humble themselves…” I knew the verse. But I did not know the reference. He told me to go get a book off his desk called a “Concordance.” He told me he would show me how to find the verse. I did not want to do that. I just wanted him to tell me the reference. He gave me a choice. Either I could get the concordance of his desk and let him show me how to find the verse or I could get his phone book off his desk and call to ask his assistant pastor, Rev. Russell Banks, where it was. I chose to call Rev. Banks. But I was rebuked by how patiently my father dealt with his prideful son. I later asked him to show me how to use a concordance. And it began a friendship with reference books that has taught me the word and help me to prepare to teach others.

My father taught a minister’s class on Tuesday nights. One night, before class, I showed the other guys several new books of sermon outlines I had bought. He sat and listened. Then he started the class by warning the other guys not to be like me. He says that I was looking for short cuts and that guys were making money writing sermon outline books for lazy preachers like me. I was challenged to dig my own wells so that I won’t have to steal other people’s water.

As I was preaching my early service this morning, I thought about how my dad used to tell people that raising me was like raising a champion horse. He was trying to discipline my ways without breaking my spirit. I do not know if he died with a sense that he succeeded. But I hope he would be proud of the man, Christian, husband, father, and minister that I have become.

I truly miss my father. And I thank God for sharing him with me as long as he did. And I pray that the Lord will keep me from dishonoring the good name my father passed on to me.

Remember my Dad on Father’s Day

June 19, 2010 in H.B. Charles Sr. with 4 Comments

My Father passed away Father’s Day weekend, 1989 – twenty-one years ago. I was 16-years-old.

I remember that day like it was just yesterday. I was young. But I think I understood what was going on. I prayed that I would be able to at least say goodbye to my day. That did not happen. But I was not angry with God at all. I did not know what was going to happen next in my life without my father. But I was not really worried.

I was numb with grief.

But I was also grateful. Very grateful.

I was immeasurably blessed to have H.B. Charles to be my father. He was not a perfect man – by no means. He made a lot of decisions that did not understand. Still don’t. But he was a good man. I am still reaping the harvest of the seeds he planted in my life. And I am still benefiting from the things he taught me over two decades ago.

It’s been a long time since that memorable last conversation with my dad. But I can still hear his voice. I can still see his smile. I smile as I remember his style, mannerisms, and idiosyncrasies. He was truly one of a kind. And I miss him.

My theology of heaven doesn’t allow me to think that he is looking down on me. I think heaven is too wonderful and Jesus Christ too glorious for him to be paying me any attention. But I hope I have become (and am becoming) the man and preaching he was praying, nurturing, and encouraging me to become.

I love my dad. I miss him greatly. And I thank God for him on this Father’s Day.

An Old Picture of My Dad

July 25, 2009 in H.B. Charles Sr., Pictures with 2 Comments

From Left to right: Unidentified, W.P. Carter, Gardner C. Taylor, H.B. Charles, Sr., Lawrence A. Felix, Sr., Horace N. Mays

Than you Professor Paul Felix for sharing this picture of our fathers with me.

My First’s Father’s Day Sermon

June 26, 2009 in H.B. Charles Sr. with 2 Comments

June 17, 1989. It was a Saturday. I flew home from Detroit to Los Angeles, after preaching a youth revival all week. As I was in the air, the Lord called my father from earth to glory.

When I finally arrived home, it was crowded with people. Mercifully, several of my friends picked me up and got me out of the house for several hours. I really needed it. When I returned home, several leaders of the church my father had pastored for forty years were there. They were waiting to talk to me. They asked me to preach the 11 AM service the following day. Father’s Day. Without really thinking about what I was getting myself into, I consented.

I was up all night trying to determine what I would say to the church, who would just be getting the news that their longtime pastor had died. I was only sixteen-years-old. And even though I had preached many youth services by then, this was an entirely different ballgame. Nothing I had ever preached seemed appropriate for that Sunday’s assignment.

I stayed up all night, preparing myself mind to preach (a pattern that has not changed in twenty years). As I read the John’s Gospel in those early morning hours, I hit a speed bump at the miracle of the fish and the loaves in John 6. I had preached it before (The lad and his lunch makes a good youth sermon). But something different jumped out me. Jesus asked Philip where they would find bread to feed the hungry multitude. Then John 6:6 records a parenthetical statement: “But this he said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do” (KJV). That was my first Father’s Day sermon. I labeled it, “The Lord Knows What He Is Doing.”

Of course, that sermon had nothing to do with Father’s Day. I don’t think Father’s Day was even acknowledged in the worship services that day. Yet for years to come, I would associate Father’s Day with that sermon.

It may have been more than ten years before I preached another Father’s Day sermon. Mind you, I was called to my first pastorate in November of 1990. But I for most of the early years of my pastorate, I did not preach on Father’s Day. I could not preach on Father’s Day.

On Father’s Day 2000, I stood to preach without my father being on my mind at all. I was thinking about another H.B. – H.B. Charles III, my son. My son had been born the previous year. And on his first Father’s Day, I preached a message entitled, “A Father’s Desire for a Godly Legacy.” In the sermon, I envisioned my funeral. And I considered what I would want my son to say about me if was to give remarks. I concluded that I wanted my son to be able to say three things about me:

1. I know my father loved me unconditionally.
2. I know my father loved my mother unconditionally.
3. I know my father loved God unconditionally.

If I remember correctly, I only wrote one more fathers-oriented sermon after that. It was on Ephesians 6:4, where Paul exhorts father’s not to provoke their children to anger, but to bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. After that, however, I have not written another’s Father’s Day sermon. If I was not (conveniently) in a series, I would redo old work… if I preached at all. Several years ago, I did not even go to church on Father’s Day. Really not good.

The Father’s Day weekend was the twentieth anniversary of my father’s death. And in some ways, it was just as disorienting. First of all, Crystal and the kids were in Los Angeles visiting family and friends. It was my first Father’s Day without my family. Moreover, it was my first Father’s Day in Jacksonville, away from everyone and everything that is familiar to me.

I was really busy over the weekend. That helped. But the Lord also used his word to comfort my heart. My first Father’s Day sermon. For the record, I do not remember anything I actually said in that sermon twenty years ago. But I cannot forget that little verse from John and its all-important message: The Lord knows what he is doing.