58. Temeko Richardson: At The Cross

How does a systems engineer, tech entrepreneur, and award-winning filmmaker reconcile the complexities of faith, race, and leadership? Listen as Ms. Temeko Richardson shares her extraordinary journey, from her faith-centered upbringing to her diverse roles in technology, systems engineering, and her perspective as a writer and producer of inspirational films like "At the Cross."

We take a hard look at the imperfections of church institutions, the often complicated dynamics of church leadership, and the current issues that confront our society. Through real-life examples, we discuss the challenges of transitioning church leadership and planning for the longevity and vibrancy of faith communities. Temeko also provides her thoughts on promoting female empowerment in church settings and the vital role of youth pastors who can genuinely connect with the younger generation on contemporary issues.

In an era marked by rapid societal changes, our discussion ventures into how churches can become more inclusive without compromising their core beliefs. The metaphor of the church as a hospital resonates deeply as we explore how faith communities can support and guide individuals through their struggles with love and integrity.

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See At The Cross Trailer: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27742483/

Chapters

• 0:09 Faith, Race, and Reconciliation in Film
• 16:25 Church Leadership and Succession Planning
• 28:26 Navigating Church Dynamics in Modern Society
• 34:18 Navigating Gender Identity and Church Acceptance
• 46:00 Navigating Challenges in Faith Communities
• 54:29 Inspirational Conversations for Faithful Living

Transcript

Grantley: 0:09

Welcome to Above the Noise, a podcast at the intersection of faith, race and reconciliation, and I'm your host, Grantley Martelly. My guest today is Ms Temeko Richardson. She's a systems engineer, tech entrepreneur, philanthropist, writer, director, and producer of inspirational films. In 2023, she released At the Cross, a full-length feature film, a full-length feature film which went on to win the Best Feature Film Narrative at the 2023 Oakland International Film Festival, Best Feature Script at the San Diego International Film Festival, and she was nominated for the Best Female Director in 2023 at the Montreal Independent Film Festival. At the Cross also won the Best Supporting Actor Award at the Golden State International Film Festival, so I'm excited for you to hear her story. So let's get right into it. Okay, good morning. My guest today is Ms Temeko Richardson, and she is a New York native, a producer, systems engineer, tech, entrepreneur many things. We're going to get to know her today. We're going to get to know the work that she does t hat I think, is pretty vital in this discussion about faith, race and reconciliation. So let's begin. Tomeko, welcome to Above the Noise.

Temeko: 1:57

Thank you very much, Grantley. Thank you for having me on. Pretty exciting.

Grantley: 2:01

Thank you for coming. So you know know a lot of things, and but I'm going to let you explain them to our audience first, and then we will get into them one by one. But one of the first things that you told me, one of the first things I read about you, is that you're a New York native. So tell us where you were born, a little bit about your family and your upbringing.

Temeko: 2:24

New York native in the sense that I was born in upstate New York and live in New York City as well as upstate New York, so I live in both places. Where I like to do my writing is actually on Long Island, in the Hamptons. That's really my New York story. I'll say, in terms of where I guess I went to college is more like down 95. So anybody that follows you that is on the East Coast they'll understand this. Whe I went to Temple, university of Penn and Georgetown. So that's all down basically I-95. So my background actually started with math and computer science as an undergraduate major. That's what I graduated from, or graduated with a bachelor's at Temple and then went on to the University of Pennsylvania and focused on systems engineering with a background in operations research from Wharton and then Georgetown with sports management. So I was able to, and still am able to, marry all of the all of my majors. They all matter in everything that I have ever done. So I know how college students always say that I majored in things that didn't even apply to things. But I was fortunate. I actually used them in all capacities. So I run a technology company. I have real estate adventures that I have across New York State, and then I also do philanthropy across the country as it relates to running, which is, of course, my, my favorite thing to do in the world in the morning to ease the stress and um. And then, of course, this production company, where it's focused on inspirational content. So that's, I guess that's the summary. That's the cliff notes. How about that? About tha?

Grantley: 4:23

so I also had some similarities to you and you know my original degree was in chemistry and then biochemistry, then it got into environmental industry and transportation, then transportation, public transportation management, and also do podcasting, and I I'm also a licensed minister. And people also say, well, how did all those things come together? Well, god brings them all together to do the things that he wants to do. Right, after a while, your major in college really doesn't matter. It's how you put things together to do the things that you want to get done. Would you agree with that?

Temeko: 5:08

To some extent, right. So all of my clients are based in that whole field of math, computer science and system engineering, as well as sports. So I think it's different for different people, but I think it's also about focus, right. So, like I kind of knew what I wanted to do, my middle school principal I saw him a couple of months ago and he was like you know, clearly you had a Jewish mother and it worked out, so you know.

Grantley: 5:37

so, yeah, so tell us about your systems engineering work. What does that involve?

Temeko: 5:44

Systems engineering work. What does that involve? So that really involves a lot of both the technology side, as well as understanding sometimes the transportation side and the electrical side, and the business intelligence based around it and the systems intelligence based around it as it relates to sometimes analytics building out algorithms to make things run a lot more efficiently. I know that people say AI and artificial intelligence and machine language are going to kill society but, it has a lot of benefits, so I was basically on the front end of it when it first started.

Grantley: 6:25

But that's interesting. We won't get into that, but I actually worked for an engineering company at one time. Part of the things we did was systems engineering, project controls, logic control boards and all that kind of stuff.

Temeko: 6:39

Hey, bring out the logic control boards, we can work them out.

Grantley: 6:44

Yeah, most of my work is in the transportation industry. As we move on here, tell us a little bit about your faith journey.

Temeko: 6:52

Well, I think my faith journey is a little different than most because my grandparents were both pastors and preachers in the United Holiness Church. So when my parents were getting a divorce, I stayed with my grandparents. Everything I did was mostly go to church, because that's what they did in United Holiness Church. They were always in church on most days Sundays, mondays for Bible study, tuesdays for something other Bible study. Wednesdays for the church Bible study, thursdays for the for the praise night. So, yeah, pretty much you were in church at least five days a week. And then I think that that kind of morphed into adulthood where, from an adult perspective, once I became, once I graduated college, then my focus was okay, I don't want to be in a church that holds service more than an hour, hour and a half tops, so, so, so I was like I want church light. You know what I mean. So I joined a church when I moved to, when I moved back to New York after Philly, I joined a church and I'll call it church light to be to be nice. Yeah, church light wasn't working because church light that particular church light was very political and I don't go to church to be part of politics and you know, rub nose with, rub noses with people. Um, it's about God and the inspiration that is driven from the Bible, having strong biblical teaching and things of that nature. So I left that church and went to non-church light. So it's Church in the A&E, allen A&E.

Grantley: 8:43

Yeah, I'm familiar with Allen AME it's Church in the AME. All AME. Yeah, I'm familiar with Alan AME. Where was that? I think there was one. I had some friends in the Alan AME in Barbados and then in Salt Lake City.

Temeko: 8:54

Okay.

Grantley: 8:55

Yeah. So is that where you attend now?

Temeko: 9:01

Yes, yes, Alle alan, AME. Our Pastor Emeritus is Floyd Flake, who is a member of Congress, and his wife is currently the pastor, E elaine Flake, due to AME rules and regulations that require pastors to retire at a certain age, so we'll be getting another pastor in the near future.

Grantley: 9:22

So it's an interesting, interesting concepts there. So, as so your faith journey has led you, you know, from your grandparents, all the way through to your life right now, you have also become a movie producer, and one of the things we want to talk about in in this interview is your, your movie that you just released and some of the concepts in there, because some of the concepts in that movie bring us back to some of the things that the church is facing. So if we could begin with talking about you know your venture into becoming a producer, a film writer, producer, tell us a little bit about that journey and then we can get into talking about At the Cross, your movie that was recently released.

Temeko: 10:13

Sure. So a lot of things that I think we experience in life, we channel and we don't use those experiences to help others along the way. So I didn't want to be that kind of person. So every challenge that I had, I'm like OK, this some way has to fold into some type of story. I don't know what that story is, but some way someone has to learn from it. And those were just obstacles.

Temeko: 10:41

As it relates to, of course, being the grandchild of two preachers and two pastors and looking at it from different perspectives, because, of course, my grandmother was a pastor as well as my grandfather. So those are two different perspectives and two different lenses. And, of course, the church, because, as a whole, because I don't think any one of your followers will think that the church is perfect and nor that leaders in the church are perfect. So I've seen on the back end what a lot of great ministers and pastors, basically, are doing behind the scenes. I'll'll say that people would never imagine. So I've seen all of that um.

Temeko: 11:28

And then, in terms of, like, the corporate world, with a lot of experience in the corporate world in different industries. So bring that all together as well as dealing and just like, uh, relationships with people in those corporate environments and helping people understand that there is some. There is a lesson in everything that you go through, so you just don't go through it just because. So basically wanted to teach those lessons and be an inspiration across the board as it relates to corporate America, church, religion, mental health, wellness, sports and the like.

Grantley: 12:09

Okay, so you put all of that together and what? What inspired you to to write this? Were you actually the writer of the script and the producer?

Temeko: 12:18

I did all three yeah.

Grantley: 12:19

Okay, so what inspired you?

Temeko: 12:22

Jewish mother man, you just got to go do it all. So I'd inspire jewish mother. Jewish mother man, you just gotta go do it all. So, so, um, for for this particular movie, it was, it's actually based on a true story. It's based on two true stories that I blended together.

Temeko: 12:35

That happened, uh, with relation to the church and how it is particularly seen. So if you you walk through how, I guess the plot of the story is basically the bishop, who is the pastor of a church it's a non-denominational, multi-generational church that is also in an urban community community he basically traverses through challenges as it relates to having the church return back to normalcy after the pandemic, as well as trying to have an intergenerational relevance with the youth, to bring them off the streets and back into the church and as well as keep the existing individuals who are members of the church still a part of the church. And then, of course, there's the component of the succession planning that I think that most church leaders miss the boat on, if they're not, you know, forced, but I think they miss the boat on it, and in this particular case, it's a matter of him trying to leave the church to his son.

Grantley: 13:45

So you wrote the script, and how long did it take you? By the way, before we get into that, the movie we are talking about is At the Cross, produced by written and produced by Miss Tameko Richardson. It's available on Amazon Prime and Tubi. I encourage you to go watch it and see her great work. This show has also won a few awards that we're going to talk about here a little bit later, but we're talking about the movie At the Cross, so how long did it take you to go from this concept to actually producing the movie?

Temeko: 14:22

Well, the concept was already kind of in the mind. So then you have to write down like what do you want to bring across in the movie. So I think that probably took about two to three months in order to identify the concept and then to change the concept or to change what you wanted to tell in the story as it relates to the concept. So a lot of it had to do with what did you want to bring across, what messages did you want, had to do with what did you want to bring across, what messages did you want to send and what did you want to deliver to make those uncommon conversations that don't happen, as it relates to the church or around the church. So that took probably another two months.

Grantley: 15:01

So did you have experience in producing movies or stuff like this before?

Temeko: 15:06

Well, I did a. I did a short film before, called Fork Down that had several awards to it, so it wasn't the first. No, like I didn't just go out and say let me just write a feature, no, I guess that's what I'm trying to get at.

Grantley: 15:20

How did you get from this concept actually producing a movie that I think is like an hour and a half, yeah, and then have it to be available online?

Temeko: 15:31

I mean that that seems to be multiple processes and multiple areas of specialty there that that just doesn't happen in six months right and I, and I think also when I was consulting for one company in California, one of the things that I did do as a side is that I attended New York Film Academy, so just to hone in on writing skills and things of that nature. That played a part in it as well.

Grantley: 16:01

You had some.

Temeko: 16:03

Had some training, yes, training and stuff like that. Yeah, okay, well, that's good to know I didn't go on YouTube and just say let me just figure it out.

Grantley: 16:11

yes, the reason why I'm getting at that is because I think that's just a monumental feat that you were able to, that you were able to pull off in such a short space of time.

Temeko: 16:22

Appreciate it in such a short space of time, appreciate it.

Grantley: 16:25

In the film you talk about a number of different issues and I think, coming on to the end of it, you sort of condense them into sins all the new social justice, gender identity, racial and sexual bias and mental challenges, and you had an interesting statement there that said the imperfect church welcomes you to a perfect God. Let's talk a little bit about that statement there. The imperfect church welcomes you to a perfect God.

Temeko: 16:59

Well, yes, I think that people believe, when they join churches, that there's not a level of error, inefficiency, inaccuracy, lack of judgment that you would expect from church people, right, because that's what you would get from God. So I think that that misnomer needs to be just thrown out there right out of the gate, right? So there is no church that's perfect, there are no perfect people, but we do serve a perfect God. So you may get judgment from people for what you do, but at the end of the day, it's really up to God and your relationship with God. So I think, if we use the church as an emphasis to hone in on getting more biblical teaching and focus on what we know to be the relationship with our with our God as it relates to everything that we do in life, but we should be getting that on a personal level by ourselves before we get to the church, so that way, you know, we're not dissuaded from spirituality and Christianity. So I think that that's a big thing, and a lot of times when people join the church, they get excited, and one of the things my grandparents both told me is that if you ever want to keep your relationship with God and you want to always be really good in your church.

Temeko: 18:33

Don't join any organization and that came from pastors and preachers, right? So they're just like once you join those organizations, man, the people in those organizations will make you want to not go to church anymore. Man, the people in those organizations will make you want to not go to church anymore. And my very first experience joining organizations that did happen. Or I'm like you know what I'm good on church, like I can go online, I'm good, but it doesn't work for everyone, right? So everyone doesn't have the strong relationship with God. You know what I mean. So I think learning that church is imperfect, that is very key before you start your walk with God, just understand that church is the vehicle that you will need in order to be around like-minded individuals that want God and want biblical teaching.

Grantley: 19:21

Yeah, so many people expect. I think I hear you saying that the church is perfect because we say we serve a perfect God but they forget that the church is made did that sermon at the end? Serving a sinless God. The way that we serve a sinless God is that we sin less daily. Right, I thought it was a pretty powerful concept. God is who he is, but we're not who God is. And the concept of sin less, I thought that was pretty powerful.

Temeko: 20:06

Yes, she did that. Actually, our pastor, reverend Elaine Flake, is the one that I heard that from first in one of her sermons, and Marissa Farrow, she's an actual minister. So she's not an actor, as you could probably tell. She's very good, very dynamic, very, very, very strong and powerful youth minister across the country. So she or I can't say across the country, I'll say across the world, because she does a lot of preaching internationally as well.

Grantley: 20:40

So let's talk about this concept of you know some of these concepts again. You had the pastor who was also a bishop, and he wanted to transition out the church to his son, his older son. The son wasn't really feeling as though this was something he wanted to do or needed to do, but was struggling with how to tell his father that. Let's talk about that a little bit, this thing of succession planning, and sometimes that the people, that who we think will take over for us, may not necessarily be that person, or that person may not be seeing themselves in that role.

Temeko: 21:19

I think succession planning is something that the church does a horrible job with, as in general, like I've seen it done really, really successfully with two churches, and that being Faithful Central with Bishop Kenneth Ulmer, where he did basically a six or seven year transition to Dr JP Foster and did it really well. Another one would be Pastor the late Pastor Lawson. He just passed last week. He did, I think, almost like a six or seven year transition to Dr Marcus Crosby down at Willard Avenue Baptist Church in Houston.

Temeko: 21:56

So succession planning can be successful but in most cases from a church perspective it's not, and that's both denominational and non-denominational. So I think a lot of problems with that is especially for ministers who are pastors, who have their children in place in the church and they kind of want the children to take the reign and kind of like it's a family business, that kind of thing. Like it's a family business, that kind of thing. The problem with it and you know we joke about it with one major church is well, no, with several major churches is that like you're giving it to children that don't have any oil, like you could tell they don't want to be there, like their messages are extremely weak.

Grantley: 22:42

They're not called.

Temeko: 22:44

Right, and they're just very fabricated in their whole presence. So the problem with that is that you then, after you do that, you tend to have individuals who no longer want to attend the church, right, because they can't connect with these individuals. So now here goes your church membership it's falling and then you're not reaching people Right, and that's that's really the key is to bring people on as disciples. So you can't bring disciples in if the people who are leading aren't called right. So I think that's a problem because it can actually destroy a church and it can destroy the levels of discipleship in the future. You know, I think that succession planning is something that needs to be taught from an MBA perspective to church leaders, as well as organizations like the denominations, like the example I was given before, from the AME perspective, right. So, yes, you have to have the pastors retire by 75. Great, but allow the pastors to put in a person for that last five to seven years so that they are ingrained into the church community as well as the body, the body of people, and understand the dynamics, the politics within the community and the city, all of those types of things to make keep the church going and keep it growing and, of course, growing the disciples. So, yeah, they need an MBA approach to that. They need to stop with what they're doing within the church.

Grantley: 24:20

You brought up a couple of different things there, you know. One of them is this resistance in many churches that you know we are a church and we are not a business or we are not a secular organization so we don't want to talk about. You know how people do stuff in business and like proper succession planning and what does it mean and how does it help an organization when we see in so many instances, like you have articulated, where if we don't do it well, it can cause many problems. But there's also this other challenge out there in some denominations that leaders and ministers are called to be ministers and not necessarily chosen by their family to be ministers. It's not always a family business, right? God calls people to his work and maybe part of the leadership succession planning is not so much looking at who's in your family who can do the work, but who God has placed in your church or around you, who he is calling right. So like Samuel and Eli right In the book of 1 Samuel, Eli's sons were not following the way of the Lord.

Grantley: 25:33

Just like this young man was right, he didn't want to be a priest, but God sent Samuel as a young man for Eli to train to take over as the priest, the prophet, the priest and the judge, right, so that dynamic of it may not be your son or your daughter whose God is God. It may be someone else around you, but if you're so focused on this is how we do it or this is how I want to do it, you may miss that person which in your movie actually happened. And that brings us to the second topic, that we can sort of meld them a little bit. Is this thing about sexual biases in the church right? Because here was a young lady who was maturing her faith, who was called, who had the gift in, but the way that the church was structured was not structured to facilitate her ministry developing to its full potential.

Temeko: 26:32

And I think a lot of that also has to do with, yes, the succession planning for, or the lack of succession planning, I should say that wants to have that nepotism, that wants to have that nepotism. But also it screams to the fact that some people are still resistant to having females being in the leadership roles within church. I never really experienced that because even though my grandparents were in North Carolina, there were plenty of female ministers and pastors in United Holiness Church and still to this day, even growing up as an adult, I've always seen females in leadership in the church, and a lot of it also has to do with the fact of who is a male doesn't delegate any of the duties to a female leader in ministry. That also poses a problem because then people won't look at that individual as a true leader, a called individual, and in that particular light so a lot of it has to do with who is running it from the top, just like a corporation, right, you are as successful as the people that lead you from the top.

Temeko: 27:52

In most cases, what I will say is that when you have a male leader that is in charge at the top, who has no problem with putting women out in front of people having that particular charge, the people will respect the ladies that are in leadership. So I don't think that we should veer away from succeeding to women in charge because of gender. I think that that's a misnomer that I think that people have. But I will say also, in that same light, with a lot of the movement across the country being the US, with regards to, like hashtag, female bosses and female empowerment and all of these different things, you will get resistance because no one wants anything forced on them.

Temeko: 28:51

If you are forcing it, it's a different thing than integrating it without promotion. So I don't think you need to integrate everything with promotion, because it's different, right? We don't need to say that if we're all, if it's an all black congregation, we don't need to say, hey, we need a Caucasian person in here and we're going to force this Caucasian uh minister on you guys and you're going to listen to them Like you don't need to do that, right? Just bring them in, have them start preaching, have them integrating in the Bible study and let it. Let it take its course. So I think that we need to have a safe boundary, and I think we also need to have some perspective on what we're doing in the church as well as just across the country.

Grantley: 29:41

Yeah, and that natural progression of people building relationships with each other. So another issue that you try to address in this film I mean there's so many of them is this issue of the youth and integrating the youth into the church and trying to keep the young people engaged. And they were having the discussion about how boring church was and they didn't want to be there anymore, and that seems to be an issue in many churches today. Where does young people fit in? How do we keep them there? What roles can they serve? Let's talk about that a little bit.

Temeko: 30:23

Well, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the churches have to be intergenerational. Now, even if you have a leader who's 70, 75, that still does not mean the church is not intergenerational, right? So they can have youth pastors 20 to 30 men, you know, the baby boomer pastors and all of these different ministers that they can have that focus on these unique individuals and demographics within the church. So I think that that's the first part to it. You have to have a person that's leading in some capacity, that understands the struggles, right? So if I'm 70, outside of understanding what my grandmother I'm sorry, grandchild is going through, I'm really not understanding what's really happening to the 20 and 30 year olds, right? So I'm kind of outdated. You got to have someone that understands what you know what's the new language, what's the new common terminology, what are those particular struggles? So that's the first thing. I think also, the second thing is that the church has to have a have a way to be entertaining, to bring them, to bring the church in or bring the youth in, but not entertaining such that church becomes entertainment. And that is, I think, a challenge for a lot of churches because even with praise and worship, depending on what church you're in, but mostly most of the praise and worship that is done, I'll say, is not from the Christian base. So it's it's to keep you engaged in entertainment that you would probably be more familiar with.

Temeko: 32:14

If from a secular perspective. Right, if you listen to some of the beats of the newest songs that are out there, as it relates to Christian music and gospel music, those beats are very similar to secular beats, right, and sometimes they use secular samples. Right, and not saying anything is wrong with that. But you can't keep that persona and you can't keep up that thought process as you are building your church and getting people in the church. Right, at some point you have to turn it into biblical teaching and people have to live in a proper fashion and not just say, well, if you're a good person, you're going to heaven. Like, yeah, it doesn't work that way. So at some point you have to turn the leaf from the entertainment to calling them to God, helping them to get relationship with God so that they can sin less, because that is the idea of God is to love you through your correction, so that you are corrected. So I think that's the key there.

Grantley: 33:17

Yeah, and I think that was also addressed by the worship leader when they were practicing the dance the first time, when he stopped and said hey, this than the dance, it's more than the performance, it's got to be worship, so get it as so the young people. Some of the young people were involved in that. But get also getting back to the young people and and this thing now about gender identity, when the young people did get involved with the young pastor, they got involved at school and they started reaching out to their friends. They immediately ran into this discussion about gender identity, right, and came back and says well, how do we deal with this? So many churches are dealing with that right now. What are some of your ideas and thoughts on how the church needs to deal with this gender identity question?

Temeko: 34:06

Yeah, that's a difficult one in the sense of a traditional church, simply because, you know, the traditional church really doesn't have gender identity issues. But understanding that God calls all people in terms of being part of the people that he loves, right, he loves everybody. So, whether you're the adulterer, you are the thief, it's all the same, right. So in the gender identity, so it's everybody, he loves everybody. So I think that the first thing that people have to understand is that there will be people that don't look like us that still love God and God still loves them. So we can't shun them away from the church.

Temeko: 34:54

What I think that we do have to do is have those uncomfortable conversations right, and unfortunately, in this particular country, people don't know how to have uncomfortable conversations.

Temeko: 35:06

Like we don't know how to agree, to disagree, we don't know how to go, not go off the handle on each other and like shut each other down if we have some differences in our opinions.

Temeko: 35:20

Place in the church where we can do that right and from that perspective, once you do that, I think that that solves a lot of issues, as it relates to people who are in this crossroad of not understanding who they may be, not understanding what this means for their spirituality, as well as some of these things leading to depression and mental anxiety and things of that nature, and you don't want that right. So you don't want to be the person or the church that didn't usher in a person, because you know they are binary or whatever their classification is. They become depressed about it and don't want to have a relationship with God, or they're so done with church people that they just can't fathom a relationship with God, so you don't want to be that person. But I will say that all churches need to understand that love is the top thing that we need to do to bring people in, that love is the top thing that we need to do to bring people in.

Grantley: 36:24

Yeah, so that's, that's an interesting concept, right? Because when we say in the church, you know God only made two genders, right? Male and female. That's all there is. That's good to say. Is that really helping the person who is struggling with their gender identity?

Temeko: 36:42

Well, I don't think that's think that's helping the person, right, but you probably have to say that you know that's what God made. But at the end of the day, if you're struggling with one or the other or if you believe that you are one and not the other, then I think that's your relationship with God that you need to have, not your relationship with the people in the church is going to judge you, right, because it's in terms of what your sins are and like. What are those sins? And at the end of the day, there's no hierarchy of sins. So there's no PowerPoint presentation in the Bible that depicts that. You know, this sin is like equal to these two sins and things of that nature, right? So I think we just always have to be mindful of it, that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory. We all have been confused in some manner on something before and we seek God for clarification and we seek him for direction.

Grantley: 37:43

Right, that's an interesting point, because people in the church are all dealing with a whole bunch of different things. This gender identity is one thing. The mental health you mentioned a little bit about and that's talked a little bit about in there. But even you know the pastor, the bishop, had his own issue. Oh yeah, we sort of won't give that away here, but you know he had his own. He had his own issue as well. So even as a pastor he was dealing with his own issues. So if, if we approach it from the standpoint that you're saying, where people in the church and in the community are dealing with a whole bunch of things and that God doesn't see a hierarchy of those things, right it's, how can we help people come to God, have a relationship with Him and let Him, through the power of the Holy Spirit, work them through that process to the point to where they're sinless and become more like Him?

Temeko: 38:41

Well, yeah, and I think a lot of it also has to do with we have to have that boundary where, also, when you allow this hospital of people that have, you know, ailments and injuries, call sins, let's, let's say it what it is. Once you have that boundary, you also have to understand that you cannot, as the leader of the church, you cannot have let the sin prevail right in the church, because that also can be a sense where it can be influential. A lot of times you'll see in churches where individuals are married and then they have this side person and they're committing adultery with someone in the church. Like you hear it all the time, right that it happens, but like, do you want that person to be in charge of the financial board or the you know, be a trustee in the church or be a deacon, and that's the behavior that you're accepting as a leader of the church or do you sit that person out for a period of time and let that person work on their issues, out of the limelight of being a leader in the church, to move forward? So I think a lot of that has to do with how the leader of the church actually deals with people and deals with correction.

Temeko: 39:58

Another thing to that is basically from a church perspective. Even if we're in church, we also have to be mindful of being judgmental of the people that are in church and not hold them hostage to sins that they've committed. Right, because many times people don't understand the dynamic of not having the nuclear family at this point. Right, so there are going to be a lot of situations where there are kids that are born out of wedlock, and it's more prominent now today. Right, because the culture says it's okay, so we, we have that dynamic. So we can't hold people hostage to sins that were created or that were done years ago and we have to keep keep things moving in terms of helping people, loving people through or correcting them through love.

Grantley: 40:49

Yeah, and I think you use a really good example with a hospital, right. The church is like a hospital. You go to hospital and everybody has their own different ailments, but their standards right. This is how you get healed, this is how we help you, this is how we bring you back to good health, and each of those things take different times and different interventions, different skills and different things. But are we allowing people to heal at the rate they need to heal, up to the standard they need to heal to? Why, at the same time, not compromising the message of the gospel and the standards that God expects us to uphold within the church and within the community as well?

Temeko: 41:33

Absolutely.

Grantley: 41:35

So that's a great discussion. I want to encourage people again. The movie is At the Cross and it's available on Amazon Prime and Tubi. You can go and watch it and talk about it with your friends, maybe have a watch party, maybe use it at your church. Tamika, I want us to go on and talk a little bit about the next work that you're working on right now. It's called I Am Him.

Temeko: 41:58

If you can give us a little bit of primer on that next project you're working on, so I Am Him is a short film that we filmed at the latter part of last year and released it in February. And turning it into a series and it actually just this week was not our one tele award for general advocacy and causes as it relates to mental health wellness, so pretty excited about that. So it's about two best friends that navigate through life's challenges. They're still trying to uphold that whole mantra of I am okay and we know how people in general but definitely men they hold that mantra of they're okay to the fault and they got to keep it moving. They can't have any downtime.

Temeko: 42:53

But it deals with the embarrassments that men don't like to address, like financial hardships, relationship issues, health issues, and it goes behind the scenes of those particular nuances on how they're expected to get ahead in certain industries and that may challenge their manhood as well. So it crosses the spectrum of. It crosses the spectrum of almost all the challenges that men in people in the entertainment industry, um to uh, the preachers to um, the individuals, men that also have had some some health challenges and try to hide it and it, it it becomes worse because they try to hide it. So basically, bringing all that together like people need to do better, and I think that that is probably why it won the Tell your Word, so I'm pretty excited about that.

Grantley: 44:06

So that's available now as a movie.

Temeko: 44:08

Well, it's a short film. Now it's in the film festival circuit and it'll be in the film festival circuit until the end of August, and then we'll release it as the film, and then we'll release it as the um, as the film, and then the series will be in the fall.

Grantley: 44:24

So where will? Where will people be able to see it?

Temeko: 44:27

Uh, Amazon, prime, uh, or looking at Netflix as well, um to be, uh, Apple TV. So it'll be on all, basically all your mainstreaming channels.

Grantley: 44:38

Yeah, that's great. I'm looking forward to seeing that and seeing how we can use it. Any other things you're working on that may interest our audience.

Temeko: 44:50

So I mean, we do have a documentary that we are working on that's coming out with relation to professional athletes and what that challenge is from a perspective of being the athlete that is dominant, going into the professional lane and figuring it out in terms of when it's over, when you don't want it to be over, what your next steps are and how do you adjust once it's over. So we have that, and then there's another one and that's called the tryout, and then we'll be doing a feature at the end of the year called seasoned um and that I think people will be able to relate to because it has a lot of focus on ageism. Should be very interesting.

Grantley: 45:39

So you're deeply into dealing with the current topics. Current and relevant topics.

Temeko: 45:45

Hey, we got to keep it inspirational for people.

Grantley: 45:48

Keep it inspirational. Yeah Well, I'm looking forward to that, and looking forward to seeing those and how we can use them, and how we can use them to help people with challenges. I had my own set of health challenges last summer that I had to deal with. I've learned it's better to talk about it than to try to hide it.

Temeko: 46:08

Yeah, a lot of people are going through those things, so it's always better to talk about it.

Grantley: 46:12

Yeah, it doesn't help to hide it and you can get the help you need a lot faster if you're open about it.

Grantley: 46:19

Absolutely it, and you get, you can get the help you need a lot faster if you're open about it, absolutely, you get introduced to the right people just somehow, just because people, the word is out there and people help you find the help that you need, which was, which was, my experience yeah, and I think in this particular series, what we'll find is um, because the person is trying to hide it, they basically go to like I'll call it the wrong doctor, if you would.

Temeko: 46:43

That tells them that they need X amount of treatments, et cetera. And then they go to the right doctor, I'll call them, and they don't need that many treatments, right? So those are types of things where, because they finally opened up about the situation, someone was able to recommend the right doctor that would allow them to get less treatments and, of course, that's less on the financial pocket, right? So, like you said, you got to open up to be able to talk about these things and make it more amenable to go through more amenable to go through?

Grantley: 47:21

Yeah, and it does help, but what are some of the tools that you would recommend to people who say this is very interesting, the issues that the churches are facing, the current issues that we're dealing with as people of faith in our churches, in our society, in our community, and so what kind of tools would you recommend to them or helps that would help them in addition to watching the movie at the cross, but that they could use to help them on this journey?

Temeko: 47:47

Are you talking about leaders or are you talking about people who attend church?

Grantley: 47:53

Well, both we could break it up into leaders and the people who attend church break it up into leaders and the people who attend church.

Temeko: 48:02

So I think from a leadership perspective in churches, we need to get away from that whole mantra of it's not a business, because it actually is a business right, because you can't open the doors to your business and I can't open the doors to my business without having to pay the utility bills, the lease on the property. The utility bills, the lease on the property, going through all kinds of things as it relates to the permits you have to go through, whatever it is right.

Temeko: 48:26

Insurance upkeep insurance, everything right. So all of those things are business generated. So treat it like a business and stop trying to hire individuals that are in the church to manage the business of the church. And get business people to manage the business of the church. I think that's the number one thing, because a lot of times what leaders do is they feel sorry for somebody and they give them a job at the church and you know that person's so unqualified and it ends up being a nightmare. So I think the first thing is hire qualified individuals and don't just look for people in the church in order to do that. So be a success from that perspective. And the second thing I think would be helpful for leaders of the church is to understand the importance of being intergenerational, as we spoke about before.

Grantley: 49:17

You have to have people that are relevant.

Temeko: 49:19

And by saying people that are relevant, we don't mean that they are ministers that are out in the clubs with the people, right? So relevance is not being at the rapper's party, that's not relevant. So, helping to understand where they are in their life, being able to reach them from a perspective of those common areas, from a biblical perspective, and breaking down the Bible so that they can help them with those particular challenges, that's the relevance. Going to the schools and talking to the schools, as was done at the cross, and being able to be that unbiased person that's just involved in things that are happening at the schools and the community, uh, that is around it. So that's the relevance that I mean for intergenerational Um. So, and I think, also understanding that, uh, membership doesn't outweigh the demand for biblical teaching. Membership doesn't outweigh the demand for biblical teaching. So you can't be a minister or can't be a pastor focused only on membership. Yes, you want growth, but you want disciples, right. So you want to make sure that you are reaching people through biblical teaching and you are creating disciples that are going to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I think that's that.

Temeko: 50:42

And then the fourth thing that the leader has to understand is that you will be offending people. You cannot be everything to everyone right, because once the leader tries to be everything to everyone, what ends up happening is that there's a level of sensitivity and political correctness that comes along with that, that people are forced to believe, and that does not create a good base or foundation for the church. So you have to not move away from teaching about sin and living right to not offend people. You just have to keep it within the bounds of correcting through love, through biblical teaching and helping people ensure that they have a relationship with God. So I think that that's for the leaders. From the perspective of individuals that attend church, I think that the importance is to attend a church where the leader is someone that you can respect. I think that's where you start, because can you respect the leader that is walking around in all Gucci suits and all Louis Vuitton and Fendi suits, has a Maybach and a Bentley and that's?

Grantley: 52:01

really all they're offering.

Temeko: 52:03

Right On Sundays or whatever days. They don't offer anything about what needs to happen from a biblical perspective. They don't offer anything about what you should be doing from an economic perspective as it relates to, you know, not spending money using your tithe. 10% for your. That's one thing that Reverend Flake used to always teach us. Floyd Flake is that make sure you give 10% to your house in addition to 10% to God's house, right? Not telling you where to invest it, but making sure that you save for the rainy day. You always have your own property, that you're getting that type of thing.

Temeko: 52:41

So you want to make sure that the leader that is in charge basically walks how he talks and is a very respectful leader, I think also from people that go to church. Just again, stop thinking that church is going to be perfect. It's not because the people are not going to be perfect in it. Know where you can draw your boundaries and find either a group of people in the church If it's a megachurch, find a group of people that are some Bible-believing prayer warriors Bible believing prayer warriors. Find them and not focus on being a part of an organization or ministering in the church as soon as you get there. Right. So understand the lay of the land and who people are from that perspective.

Temeko: 53:32

And I think a third for the people, especially the youth, for church don't just be drawn to church just because of the beat was good or the music was good on a particular sunday. Um, understand that you. You have to build that relationship with god and you need people around from a church in a biblical perspective that help you get through your challenges. Um, because at the end of the day, god is still working, even though you don't see what he's working, and it always works out. So I think that's the summary. That was probably a lot.

Grantley: 54:09

No, that's a good summary. That's a good summary, very well thought out and very well put together. So anything else you want to add before we go?

Temeko: 54:20

No, I think that you know. I think we've covered everything.

Grantley: 54:24

Yeah, I appreciate you coming and I appreciate our time together.

Grantley: 54:29

I learned so much about you, not just from just reading about you and meeting you before and then watching the movie, but from what you shared here today is even more enlightening.

Grantley: 54:41

I encourage you to continue the work that you're doing and be an inspirational movies and documentaries and short films that will help people deal with these issues, cause I think they're really, really important, and one of the things you said in in in one of your comments was you know people learning to have discussions, with conversations lead into some sort of reconciliation and relationship, rather than having them degrade, like you said, into them calling and not being able to truly articulate.

Grantley: 55:30

So I am happy to find a partner who is actually trying to do the same thing and hopefully together we can help accomplish that mission to help people of faith be able to really be people of faith, living out their faith in the world, doing it with intelligence, doing it with lifestyle and doing it with the love of God, in the way that we don't necessarily feel we have to be saving people, but we introduce them to a sinless God who can help them overcome their struggles and their challenges to become the people he created them to be. So I thank you for that and I thank you for the time today.

Temeko: 56:12

Thank you.

Grantley: 56:18

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