SC: When and where were you born?
BB: I was born on All Saints Day, the first of November, 1948.

I understand that you were raised in a single parent home.
I was raised in a home where my father was in and out. Obviously, the fact that I have seven siblings means that someone was cooperating in that procreation process. But we were on welfare for a large part of my childhood, and the regulations at that time mandated that there would be no adult male present in the home. I remember social workers coming by and looking in the closets to ensure that there was not an adult male present. So my father, when he was around, had to sort of dart in and dart out.

For the most part I was raised without a father in the home. However, the church in Baltimore provided me with wonderful and strong male role models. The Berea Temple Seventh-day Adventist Church on Madison Avenue and Roberts Street. It was a large church then, it's still a very large church. It was a wonderful place for a boy from the projects to grow up in. It provided marvelous male role models, it had a wonderful church school, it had an education program that subsidized the tuition of poor families so that all the children could be taught of the Lord.

My seven siblings and I matriculated at Baltimore Junior Academy from grade one through grade 10, and by that time the members of the church had sufficient generosity, and at times philanthropy, that we managed to go to Pine Forge Academy. My mother had at one time two [children] at Pine Forge and two at Oakwood College. This was really a tribute to the generosity and the vision of God's people.

This was during the time of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, John Kennedy's New Frontier before that, and yet the church did not depend upon governmental programs to extricate people from their tight cycles of poverty. The church took on the responsibility itself in much the same way that the apostolic church did, and shared what they had in such a way that my siblings and I have been able to contribute to the cause of God and even broader. I sometimes think that whatever contribution I'm making, I'm making it because of the generosity of God's people. And whatever little I'm able to do, they certainly deserve kudos for what they have contributed.

I also, in my own life, have attempted to give back some of that by sponsoring a number of young people through our Christian institutions, because I know that had people not been generous with me, I would not be here. It's the old maxim, "Freely you have received, freely give."

Where do you fall in the family order?
I am the fourth child, the first son. My birth was greeted as if the Messiah had arrived. There was a great desire for a male child. It was a tremendous blessing for me, because a lot of psychologists believe that how your self-esteem reservoir is filled, particularly in the early years is critical to your ability to handle vicissitudes and setbacks and challenges.

My reservoir was overflowing. My earliest memories are those of being picked up and kissed and held in the air like a trophy. I remember, even though we didn't have much, Christmases where I was showered with gifts. In spite of very humble beginnings, I was blessed to feel very, very special.

Moreover, my mother joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church when she was pregnant with me. When she was baptized, entering the watery grave of baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, she prayed that the Holy Spirit would do something special for the child in her womb. She reminded me of that frequently.

My mother was an old-fashioned Seventh-day Adventist in the sense that if God said it, she just did it--no questions asked. There was never any question about whether her children would matriculate from Christian schools. There was, frankly, never any question about vegetarianism and a number of other things. We attended church for early morning prayer service, and we stayed for the entire day.

My mother had morning and evening worship, and I still very fondly remember her soprano voice being lifted in praise to God. She died in 1987. I also remember her powerful prayers.

So while church school deserves a great deal of credit, it was really supplemental to the powerful Christian influence of my Mom. She walked the talk. To see someone invest that kind of energy and commitment to Christian education, it made me and my siblings feel that this has to be very, very important. So much so that the option of sending my children to anyplace other than a Christian school has never even surfaced in my mind.

It's the same with my siblings. It's not a question of money, we see it as an investment, and it's because my mother modeled that. You sometimes had to fast because there was no food in the house, but you knew that your siblings were away at school, and you knew that this was of paramount importance, and it's something that has to happen.

You went to Pine Forge Academy.
Pine Forge Academy for two years, my junior and senior years. And that was idyllic. Here again, a boy from the projects, being force-fed Mozart and Beethoven at lyceums and having to sit there long enough until I actually started enjoying and appreciating the music. Having the opportunity to be exposed to the great preachers of our church who would come through for Weeks of Prayers. This was one of the first times I heard Calvin Rock, one of our General Conference men now, this was one of my first times hearing Elder C. D. Brooks.

Elder Luther Palmer, who is a pastor in the D.C. area, was the principal of the school then. He did some special mentoring of teenagers who indicated interest in the ministry. When people like Calvin Rock, or [Charles] Brooks, or [Charles] Bradford would come, he would invite us to his home and there these giants in the church would talk to us about preaching. I first learned a very simple, topical outline approach to preaching from Calvin Rock. I'll never forget the "What, Why, How, What Then" outline that I used as a teenager preaching.

When did you begin feeling God's call to the ministry?
I have always known--though I have not always been excited about it--that I was called to preach. My mother said I was trying to preach before I could talk. It has really never had a rival in my affection.

But I knew that preachers didn't make much money, and as a result, I ran from it, like Jonah, trying to head in the opposite direction. I changed my major many times at Oakwood, trying to run from it.

What other options did you consider?
Medicine, law, usually something where I thought you could make some money--journalism. But Francis Thompson's "Hound of Heaven" caught up with me, and I finally, in my junior year threw up my hands and said, "I yield." And it was the best decision I could have possibly made. It has been for me a blessed opportunity, and a most fulfilled vocation.

Henry David Thoreau said, "The masses of people live lives of quiet desperation." And so many people get up and go to a job that they really don't enjoy. They are in a vocation that God never intended for them to be in. They're not able to exercise their God-given gifts. I feel so fortunate to look forward to getting out of bed in the morning, and for the last 24 years of being able to go to a job that I am genuinely excited about, to perform a wonderful ministry that I never dreamed was possible.

Was it at Oakwood College that you met your wife?
It was at Oakwood that I met Brenda. It was ironically in my junior year. There were some interesting movements of providence. I was not a star pupil by any means. I had some fragments of deviancy, and I think I went to the Dean of Students 11 times in my freshman year for disciplinary problems, and I'm not very proud of that.

Gaines Partridge now says that he never had any problems with me--thank God for selective amnesia, but I was selected in my sophomore year to be the first student missionary from Oakwood College. I went to Peru, into the jungles away from Lima, the capital. I've surmised that that may have been the reason why I was selected: they knew it was dangerous jungle work, so they said, "Let's send someone who is dispensable," so I was selected. But I was stunned by the selection because a number of the students were, in my opinion, far more gifted, certainly far more spiritual than I had applied, and now they were selecting me to be Oakwood's first student missionary.

While I was there I had a lot of baggage. This was in the sixties, I was a disciple of Malcolm X, I really had a chip on my shoulder. And there I met a wonderful mission couple, Elder and Sister Siegfried Neuendorff. Siegfried is still around, we had a wonderful reunion at the General Conference in Toronto recently.

Siegfried is a German, so that certainly didn't help my mind set. Evelyn is a lovely Canadian. Siegfried was the head of the Unini Mission station in Peru, and he smiles even now as he talks about the fact that I had a chip on my shoulder, but he and Evelyn loved me. Through this, what Rogers would call, "unconditional positive regard" in spite of my often bellicose and vitriolic rhetoric, they loved me into the arena of racial reconciliation. I still have a tremendous affection for them.

What did you do in Peru?
It was a wonderful experience of going from village to village pulling teeth, doing Bible work, assisting Siegfried in his evangelistic work, and being a singing evangelist. I remember at a prison for felons singing, "Lord, I'm coming home," and watching prisoners getting up and accepting Jesus as Lord. It was a very exciting ministry. We built a school, I assisted with that, actually doing bricklaying, it was just a wonderful experience. But even more importantly, Unini is nestled in a tropical paradise, with mountains all around.

You think of a lad, growing up in the inner city of Baltimore, I did not meet a White person until I was 16 years of age. And that was when I shook hands with the second place winner of an oratorical contest at Blue Mountain Academy (modesty will not permit me to tell you who the first place winner was). You're looking at an individual who was exposed to a kind of informal apartheid--even though growing up in the United States, who rarely saw trees and grass until we moved to the projects, and now here I am in a tropical paradise where everything is singing that there must be a God somewhere.

God combines that with two saints who don't care that I need to come to myself. They are willing to simply love me where I am. Through that marvelous alchemy, He managed to help me to return to Oakwood not the same.

It was after that experience that I finally yielded to the Spirit of God and said, "I will pursue the ministry."

So I met Brenda. She was, I recall, the first woman I saw, the first female student on campus, after returning from Peru. She was standing on the steps of Moran Hall, and it was for me an instant bond. I pointed to her and prayed, "That's the one that I've been praying for."

When did you get married?
We were married June 17, 1973. We were married after Brenda finished her master's degree at Ohio State. I graduated from Andrews in '72, she finished her masters in '73, and we were married shortly after that.

I did an M.Div. at Andrews. I was very influenced first of all by Charles Wittschibe, who was a wonderful pastoral counselor. My interest in psychology, which I eventually did a Ph.D in, came from first Oakwood, a teacher by the name of Dr. Earl Gooding, who was the Psychology professor, a wonderful man, and then Charles Wittschibe, who was able to demonstrate to me that there were aspects to secular psychological theory that had relevance to the pastoral counseling phenomenon. That gave a credibility to psychology that I had not, at first, appreciated.

I learned preaching from Dr. Banks, he was my homiletics professor, and he taught us--I'll never forget it--Monroe's Motivated Sequence: attention, need, satisfaction, visualization. He had a Ph.D. in Speech, and he was a wonderful teacher, but also a marvelous man of God. He invited in non-Adventist homileticians. I remember a Lutheran homiletician from one of the Chicago seminaries coming in, and we practiced preaching before him. I remember two students were selected to preach, and I was one of them, for whatever reason. What a wonderful experience that was in being affirmed by a non-Adventist homiletician, saying, "I think God is going to do something special through you." There were many ways that God was helping me to grow.

Raoul Dederen was another one of my favorite teachers. It's interesting the little things you learn from teachers. He was the gentleman who told me, "You don't have to read a textbook completely through to get the gist of it." He taught me how to read the last chapter to get kind of an orientation, then go with the table of contents, introduction, preface, first chapter, and then topic sentences of the rest of the chapters. And he said, "By then you have your bearings."

And one of the reasons I think I've been able to do three masters and two doctorates is basically because of that advice. I've never problems with outside reading because I never read every word. That's the one primary thing that Dr. Dederen told me.

I was a big fan of my Old Testament professor, Gerhardt Hasel. I had a tremendous respect for his intellect, and he was very affirming of my work in that area, so I was blessed with some very special professors.

Which conference sponsored you at the Seminary?
The South Atlantic Conference sponsored me (North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida). It was a big geographical area. I remember that the money was only $315 a month. But God was preparing me for the chaplaincy even then.

One of the requirements of the chaplaincy is that you are physically fit. At least four times a year we have to pass a physical readiness test. At the seminary because I had very little money, I decided to jog from Main Street, where I was staying, to the Seminary, which was five miles. I jogged there in the morning, shower, take my classes, and then jog back home. I became addicted to running in the seminary. Since Andrews I've probably run about four or five times a week. I still run first thing in the morning.

Do you race?
I've done some racing. When I was in Chaplains' school I actually made the base newspaper because of a record time in the Marine Corps 3-mile run. I was running sub-five minute miles.

When we think of Romans 8:28, "For we know that in everything God is working for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes," you can see how even in what would have appeared to have been a challenge, or a setback, such as a small amount of money in the sponsorship, was actually a blessing from God. I like to say that apparent setbacks are really divine setups for the children of God.

One of my favorite Bible verses is the fifth Psalm, verse 12, where he talks about the righteous being surrounded by the shield of God's favor. I like to tell my friends, "I live the lifestyle of the righteous and the highly favored," in contradistinction to Robin Leach's Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

God was preparing me for the challenging physical fitness that is required. In 24 years of taking quarterly physical readiness tests, I've never scored less than an "outstanding," which is very good for a military record and helps in promotions. So God was in it all along.

What events put you on the path toward military chaplaincy?
I was pastoring in my first district seven churches at one time. I had five churches in South Carolina and two in North Carolina. The distance between my northern-most and southern-most church was 120 miles. I was preaching three times each Sabbath, and enjoyed it.

You talk about helping to develop preaching ability. Aristotle said, "We learn by doing." And I was certainly learning. I would preach three different sermons, because I did not want my bride to have to endure hearing the same message. It was quite a challenge, but very refreshing.

About ten months into that district, God blessed us through an evangelistic meeting to raise up an eighth church. So I ended up in an eight-church district before I left there. I've always been blessed in evangelism, people responding to my messages. I had a radio program in both my first and my second districts.

In my second district, which I was moved to 18 months later, I had three churches: Raleigh, Durham, and Rocky Mount. My main church was in Durham. It as there, because I felt inadequate in terms of pastoral counseling, that I did a master's degree in counseling at North Carolina Central University.

The thing that sparked my interest in the military ministry was, I loved working with young people. It seemed that I was able to connect with young people. I was being invited to youth federations and youth congresses and that kind of thing, and the Holy Spirit would always do some marvelous things at that time.

I asked my conference president about the possibility of working with young people, and it seemed that in those days you had to be older before they let you work with young people. You had to touch all of the bases, and I guess our youth leader was in his forties, which at that time seemed ancient to me. That was the first link in this chain of providence.

About five sailors, Seventh-day Adventist sailors, who were stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, would drive the five hours, one way, 10 hours round trip, each weekend to hear me preach. And many times they would be in uniform. First component, I want to work with young people . . .

Second link, I said, "Why are you guys driving 10 hours on the weekends to attend church?"

They said, "We want to be faithful in our worship."

I said, "Why don't you attend one of the chapels? Or one of the churches in the Norfolk area?"

They said, "Well, in the chapel, we've never seen an African-American Chaplain." That piqued my interest.

Around that time, Clark Smith, who was head of what was then called the National Service Organization of the General Conference, sent out a letter saying that the General Conference was interested in pastors who would be willing to serve the church in the military. I read the letter and my interest, with the other two components, came together. I called and started talking with the General Conference and also with some local recruiters. Shortly after that I was getting into a Navy uniform and saluting and on my way to chaplains' school.

What year was this?
1976, in July. I attended chaplains' school in Newport, Rhode Island.

Where have you been stationed?
I've been stationed around the world. It's interesting. When I went to Chaplains' School I was exhilarated by the pluralistic context of the training and the ministry. I had never had an opportunity to interact with a rabbi. I had never met a Roman Catholic priest. I had never associated with pastors from the various Protestant traditions. I found that exciting: iron sharpening iron, sharing ideas, demythologizing some of the notions they had about what we believe. They called the rabbis and me "the four rabbis." There were three rabbis in the class, and they called us "the four rabbis" because we always had special dietary considerations. That was wonderful bonding that occurred between me and my Jewish friends. That was exciting, and that I remember fondly about chaplains' school.

My wife was excited about that kind of ministry. Think of it: I worked in evangelism. I had three 12-week evangelistic meetings in a tent in less than two years. When I had my eight churches, I was trained by Fordyce Detamore, a wonderful Seventh-day Adventist evangelist, who specialized in reaping campaigns.

He trained us how to do three-week meetings and 10-day reaping meetings. I would conduct 10-day reaping meetings in my seven churches. That's how we ended up raising up an eighth. We'd plant the seed, then I'd come through, get a week's rest and start again.

I would put out good money for advertisement, go on the radio, and that kind of thing, and here all of a sudden, I'm preaching to a roomful of non-Adventists. And every week I'm getting up, and they know who I am, and they're listening to me preach. I just could not believe that--particularly when, three years into my military ministry I was selected to be a chaplain at the United States Naval Academy. I was the second person of color to serve in that capacity, I was the first Adventist. Imagine 2,500 midshipmen packing a chapel Sunday after Sunday and you having the opportunity to speak to these very bright young people about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That presents unique opportunities as an Adventist to preach to all different traditions, but how specific can you be in terms of our distinct Adventist doctrines in a setting like that?
I like to say that we have an awful lot in common with other traditions. If you look at the Apostolic Creed, we could give assent to every aspect of that. There's an awful lot to be declared that is vivifying, without getting into the more distinctive doctrines. Moreover, the pulpit provided a springboard for questions, for Bible studies, and most of the work that had an evangelistic nature was done in Bible study sessions.

During one deployment we had a Bible study every day when we were underway, and I simply used the Bible Readings for the Home. I would publicize the title, and men would say, "How do you have the time to come up with all these different titles and all of these studies?" I never told them my secret, of course.

When I got to the more testing truths, because they already knew I was a Seventh-day Adventist, I could say, "You all are not ready to handle this. You can't handle it."

By the time they were threatening to throw me overboard if I didn't tell them, I would basically go and get into the more distinctive truths regarding the state of the dead, the Sabbath. Interesting enough, I often found the state of the dead to be a greater hurdle than the Sabbath. At the end of one six-month deployment, we baptized 40 members of our Bible study group who had basically, for six months, been exposed to the doctrines of the church. So the opportunities are there.

So you served on ships as well as on land stations?
Overseas, recruit training commands, the training world as an administrator and a bureaucrat, I served on the staff of the chief of Naval education and training. On an even higher level of administration, I was the Fleet Chaplain. There are two primary fleets in the Navy, the Atlantic Fleet and the Pacific Fleet, I was the Atlantic Fleet Chaplain, concerned with ministry throughout the Atlantic. I was also the command chaplain for the U.S. Atlantic Command, which is now called Joint Forces Command. It is the force provider, the resource provider for the entire military in terms of what we call contingency operations; what would happen in Kosovo or Bosnia or the Haitian, Cuban migrant crisis. I coordinated religious ministry for that--some 50,000 plus migrants, I went down and preached to about 10,000 of them at one time.

I had an interesting experience with the Haitians. I don't know quite how to explain it. There were about 5,000 of them one evening, and I was preaching through an interpreter. He was interpreting in Creole. There was an almost antiphonal response; I would say something, he would speak, they would respond. About a third of the way through my message, he stopped interpreting; they continued to respond. I don't know how to explain that, I don't try to explain it.

Later, at another Haitian church in the Boston area, the pastor was interpreting in Creole and about a third of the way through my sermon he stopped interpreting and they continued to respond. Again, I don't know how to explain it.

There were some marvelous experiences, we had a wonderful baptism; nine chaplains in the water at one time, and I'm baptizing Haitians and Cubans into the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It was a wonderful experience.

How did you happen to choose the Navy over any other branch of service?
I visited a chaplain at an Air Force installation and an Army installation and a Navy installation. I liked ministry in all of the services. But I love languages and I love to travel, so I was leaning toward the Navy.

At that time I had a full-length beard that I thought I could not live without. The Navy was the only service that would permit their personnel to wear a full-length beard. So I selected the Navy. If the Army had permitted facial hair, I probably would be an Army chaplain.

How does your position correspond to other branches of the military?
Most of the services have their own chief of chaplains. However, the Navy is responsible for the Marine Corps, and the Navy is also responsible for the Coast Guard, and the Navy also advises the Merchant Marines. So I am, in that sense, the head director of religion for the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard; those are my primary clients.

We do have a chaplain of the Marine Corps and a chaplain of the Coast Guard, but my Title X responsibilities, as we call them, make me the primary advisor, first to the secretary of the Navy, then to the chief of Naval operations, then to the commandants of the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard.

You've been on the job about two weeks now, is this a strictly administrative position? Do you have any opportunities to serve pastorally?
I am the chief pastor of the chaplains; that is how I see my role. We have close to 900 active duty and another close to 500 reserve chaplains, so a large part of my responsibility is to, as Tom Peters would put it, manage by "walking around," I'd say sometimes "flying around and sailing around," and serving them.

I strongly believe in servant leadership. My first day on the job I put out a new vision statement to our corps, which states, "We will unite (because unity is important) and deliver innovative, life-transforming service throughout and beyond the sea services." That's our vision statement. I believe that my job is to serve these chaplains; to, as Max Dupree puts it in Leadership is an Art, define reality (that's the first and paramount job of leadership). I don't want any chaplain or religious program specialist to say, "I don't know where we're headed and what's going on." Hence the vision and strategic planning.

I believe in "incarnational leadership." You have to sit where they sit, to use the words of Ezekiel. Probably about 60 percent of my time will be spent away from this office, using the bully pulpit of this office to describe where we're headed strategically, interfacing with non-chaplain counterparts who support the religious program. Remember, it is not the chaplains' program, it is the commander's religious program, the commanding officer is responsible for it; the chaplain is simply a subject matter expert who advises the commanding officer, making sure that there is broad ownership throughout what we call the sea services--Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard--to implement a vision that's going to meet the needs of all sea service personnel.

Our raison d'etre, our reason for being, is to insure that the constitutionally guaranteed religious free exercise rights of military people and their families are protected. We labor assiduously to make that happen. We take that very seriously. Each Naval officer raises his or her hand and takes an oath to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. That free exercise clause in right there in the Constitution.

So we do involve ourselves pastorally. I do counseling. I involve myself in Bible studies still. You don't stop being who you are simply because you're in an administrative position. I do an awful lot of preaching.

How long can you expect to be in this position?
It's not a lifetime appointment. It is actually normally a four-year assignment. But we have a gentleman's agreement to stay for three years. You have to remember that I've already been an admiral for three years--a one star. Then I got the second star for this job. I didn't enter it with a tabula rasa, I came in with some very specific notions about what I thought I wanted to accomplish during my watch.

I've already had a wonderful three year tour, and I'll do three more. So that will actually be six years as an admiral, and six years with my hand, to some extent, on the helm of our corps. That's very exciting.

Then I'll retire, be put out to pasture. I'm looking forward to that as well.

Tell us about your family.
My wife is supporting me full-time and our three sons. I have a 22-year old whose finishing college, a 17-year old who's a senior at Pine Forge, and an 11-year old who's going to school here.

Where do you live?
I live in the Washington Navy Yard. It's a wonderful place to live in Southeast Washington with Marines on the gates, an easy commute (about 10-15 minutes to get here in the morning).

Which church do you go to?
I'm gone a lot on the weekends, but when I'm in town I attend the Dupont Park Seventh-day Adventist Church, which is about 15 minutes away from my home.

Do your responsibilities for the Navy prevent you from holding any offices in your local church? Or do you help out from time to time?
I was so relieved at what I found military ministry to be like, that I made a promise to the Lord that whatever my pastor asked me to do, I would say yes.

The idea that I never have to worry about honchoing Ingathering goals and that kind of thing was just liberating. I've had some pastors who have taken advantage that, and I've ended up conducting evangelistic meetings and a lot of other things, but I just don't say no.

I usually end up holding an office, usually I'm an elder or some such. Right now my membership is actually still at the Cedar of Lebanon Seventh-day Adventist Church in Chesapeake, Virginia. I was a geographical bachelor for about two years, commuting back and forth, and my pastor, because he was interested in continuing to receive my tithes and offerings because the conference had some kind of arrangement where they based monies they would give for building on the level of tithes and offerings, I made a commitment with him that I would keep my membership there, and I am an elder there, so I have been able to hold offices there.

What do you do in your spare time?
As you look around you can tell I enjoy reading from time to time. I'm really addicted to that.

I love running. There's a line in the Academy award-winning movie Chariots of Fire that speaks about Eric Liddle, and his sister is chastising him because he is going to the Olympics. And he says to her, "God made me fast, and when I run I feel His pleasure." God made me fast. I was a runner at Oakwood, and on a number of occasions I ran 9.4 hundreds, which was world-class speed during those days, and once even dreamed of going to the Olympics. But when I run I feel His pleasure. I enjoy running.

I enjoy nature. I enjoy getting out and just seeing the beauties of nature. I run first thing in the morning about 5:00. I've got about a three-mile path marked out. There's usually a mist, and as I'm coming back from a run, the greatest feeling the world is to just be soaking wet from a run, as the mist is disappearing and the sun is coming up.

I also enjoy writing. I love organizing my thoughts and putting them down.

And then, I see preaching as a hobby. I love it. I preach to myself. I enjoy proclaiming the word of God. I know it's not supposed to be a hobby, but worship, to some extent, is a hobby for me. I find places, many times non-Adventist worship experiences. If there's a revival in town I'll sneak in an listen to the evangelist and enter into the praise of the Lord wherever I find the opportunity to do that.

Let me mention some words and have you respond in a sentence or two. Unconditional love.
When I think of unconditional love I think of what is very necessary in counseling and in leadership. You have to accept where people are, and that's what Christ does for us, and that's what we need to project to one another. It is a very underestimated resource.

Race relations.
When I think of race relations, I think of the importance of being with people. So much of the tension we see in race relations comes from pre-judging. Prejudice is essentially pre-judging. I've learned from military ministry that by getting to know people, you do more to heal and to bring reconciliation than almost anything that can be read or written. And I point back to what Siegfried and Evelyn Neuendorff did for me. Without even bringing up the specifics of race they were able to bring about racial reconciliation.

Being there, being who you are in Christ is a powerful force in race relations. What you do speaks so loudly people won't hear what you say.

Evangelism
Evangelism is the most powerful, life-transforming force that can be unleashed to bring about fulfillment in the lives of people. When I think of where my family would be if my mother had not picked up a handbill and gone to a tent meeting, I shudder. So many of the people in the neighborhood I grew up in are now either dead or incarcerated. By simply being exposed to an evangelistic meeting, it completely changed how we ate, how we would be educated, how we would dress, what we would read, it was a complete overhaul of our lifestyle. It is a powerful force for good.

Military Service
From a chaplain's perspective, military service provides a model of pluralism, a model for pluralistic ministry. When I look at the military service and think of the fact that before entering I never pastored someone who was not African-American, I never baptized anyone who was not African-American, I never participated in the ordinance of humility with anyone who was not African-American. I never did pastoral counseling to anyone who is not African-American. When I think of what the military has afforded me in terms of a broad and fulfilling ministry, that I probably would not have gotten in other contexts, I think it's a model in pluralism. The civilian sector could learn an awful lot from "cooperation without compromise," which is the motto of so many of the chaplains of the services.

Discipleship.
Discipleship has to do with the difference between declaring Jesus is Savior, and declaring Jesus is Lord. There are so many of us who are willing to have our lives covered with His wonderful blood, but in terms of doing what He wants us to do, that's another story.

Discipleship, as Bonhoeffer would put it, is realizing that He bids us "come and die." It involves taking up our crosses, it involves reflecting on the sacrifices we're willing to make, it involves developing an appreciation for the fellowship of suffering.

Christianity.
Christianity, when truly unleashed, is the solution to society's problems. Unfortunately, there's been a lot of malpractice going on. Again, I look at my own family, and I think of what Christianity has done for it. Christianity informs who I am as a leader, it provides me with a wonderful internal compass. I think of the friends I have made, and I'm not necessarily talking about living friends. When you develop a love for the word of God, you live in another world. There's a cloud of witnesses who inform you and who guide you. I've learned so much from David. I've fallen in love with the Psalms. Solomon has been a mentor for me. I've read the book of Proverbs at least a hundred times. Paul has been a marvelous guide. And it's Christianity that provides us with these friends in high places who give us a ramah word day after day after day.

When our Lord said, "I've come that you might have life and have it more abundantly," He was talking about the power of real Christianity unleashed in the world. It truly enables an individual to live an abundant life. It gives you a contentment that you can't get by pursuing the broken cisterns of the world. Christianity when properly unleashed is still a force to be reckoned with.

What characteristics do you bring to the position you have now?
I'm the first person of color to have the job. I'm the first Adventist to have the job. There are scores of senior leaders who would like to have the job and they just didn't get the opportunity. After all, you only have one chief of chaplains in the entire chaplain corps.

I think of the seventy-fifth Psalm: "Promotion comes not from the east or the west or the south or the north but God sets you up." I firmly believe, and I don't have time to talk about the specifics, but there was one series of miracles after another that brought this about. What I bring is a genuine hunger after God; and it was one that I had from a child.

When I was a child I would go into the church by myself and would just kneel in prayer. I don't know too many children who would do something like that. That hunger after God, in a similar way as David, without even having a covenant relationship with his siblings, was out in the meadow, but he had this relationship with God. God honors that.

I have a thirst for knowledge and learning. Servant leadership involves listening--because before you can serve you have to hear what are the needs--learning what the needs are, and then seeking to serve to meet those needs. I have that capacity. I've been a life-long learner, and I think God honored that and said, "This is an instrument that I can use to truly serve the chaplain corps right now."

I also think God has blessed me with a marvelous ability to communicate. The chief chaplain's office is to some extent what Teddy Roosevelt described the presidency to be: it is a bully pulpit. The ability to communicate a vision and to get people excited about that vision is critical. Moses was hesitant about going back to Egypt because he thought he lacked communication skills. But he had far greater gifts than he realized.

Then I've been blessed to have the kinds of experiences in terms of where I've been assigned. As I've already hinted, God has been preparing this all along, so that I bring the kind of knowledge base that's required for making the tough decisions and for not being intimidated by these very senior people, whom I'm called to advise.

When I was in my first year in the Navy Chaplain Corps I was working with Admiral John O'Connor, later the cardinal of New York, John Cardinal O'Connor. And I'm thinking to myself: What is God up to?

This photo that you see right here, this is the Chief of Naval Operations. In this picture I'm still in my twenties, and here I am chatting with the Chief of Naval Operations, the highest ranking person. So I was in many ways like David, playing a harp in the palace. Though I grew up in the meadow taking care of sheep, God exposed me very early to the palace, to the protocol of the palace, to the vocabulary of the palace, in order to prepare me for this day.

I've had fairly substantive friendships with most of our Chiefs of Chaplains, often wondering when these opportunities opened up, What is God up to?

It is that background, and that familiarity with the contributions of the previous chiefs, with the history of our corps, that I bring and will help to lead this corp into the twenty-first century. I am technically the first Chief of Chaplains for the twenty-first century.

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