In the process of that we created Urban Hope. With Urban Hope -- the name before was Alpha and Omega, but we changed it to Urban Hope this past year. Carol Kelso, John Underwood, Peter Platten, who are on our board with the Green Bay Packers, really took this thing by the arm and really went out and promoted it for us to help us to get it started in Green Bay.
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We wanted to start it in Milwaukee first, but the problem was there were so many turf issues there we figured we'd start in the smaller city and try to get it up off the ground and get it proven and probably can get it working much quicker in a smaller city than we probably could in a bigger city and then move it around.
Well, we started in Green Bay. Some of you may have heard, we've created a microcomputer program, an entrepreneur school and a housing initiative, and the community came together to do this, from the businessman to the government. The whole community came together to do it together.
And I believe that in order for anything to work in any city, that turf issues have to be destroyed, because it's not going to take one person to change a city, it's going to take everybody to change a city. And to deal with the problems that we're dealing with in our cities today, maybe spreading across this country, we're dealing with some major problems, you know, we're trying to find solutions to.
And I believe that we're searching for those solutions in the wrong places, and we're depending more on our education to correct those solutions instead of depending more on God to correct those solutions.
In the process, we've just had our first entrepreneur graduation. We graduated 13 people. The two students that had the best business plans ended up getting a $2,500 grant apiece, and we're actually helping them also to be able to go to the banks and also get a loan to even build their businesses even stronger.
And from that our goal for Urban Hope is to teach responsibility, to make people responsible. People in our cities have been given so much free money lately that they're not toting the responsibility, and that money goes. It's only temporary. We have to make it lasting. We have to teach responsibility.
In the process of teaching responsibility we have to build families. Because the thing that is destroying inner city communities today is that the families have been destroyed and torn down.
You have a majority, and particularly in the black community, a majority of young people's fathers are either in jail or dead, and that's a problem. It's a problem when in our corrective facilities in America, that 40 percent of the men in jail in the total population, including women, are black men.
So we have a problem in our community, and the problem is we don't have enough fathers in our community. In the process of not having enough fathers in our community, we're not being able to train our children in the aspects that they're supposed to be trained in.
One thing I really admire about the Jewish community is that when they give their sons bar mitzvah when they're at the age of 13, they give their daughters bat mitzvah at the age of 13, they're celebrating their man and womanhood. They're telling them, that look, you're a man now. Because you're a man, you're going to have to become responsible. You're a woman now. Because you're a woman now, you have to become responsible.
In our inner city communities we have no situations to when we can celebrate young children's manhood or womanhood, and because we don't do that and we haven't done that and been able to do that, our children are running rampant. They think what it takes to be a man is maybe how many guns they got inside their jackets or how many young ladies they get pregnant or even how many young ladies get pregnant. They.
Think now that that's what it takes to be a man or woman. We're not training them to let them know what a true man or a true woman is, and a true man and a true woman is responsible.
In the process of that and having an opportunity to go to Israel, I was really impressed with some of the things that I saw over there. One thing that I was impressed with, to look back in the past and see how these people built their cities. I realized something about us as Americans. We're lazy. We're extremely lazy.
The reason I say that is because when we were to Megiddo, they built cities on top of cities. They built seven cities on top of one another, and everything was made out of rock -- not brick, rock. And they had to carve the rock and they had huge stones that they had to lift to build the cities.
But the reason they built the cities was not for the purpose of really putting money in their pockets. They built their cities for the purpose of protecting their people from the enemy. That was -- as we were in Megiddo we went down into the ground. Actually, the women used to go out and get the water for the communities, but when they went out the enemy was waiting.
So what they did is they took a hammer and a chisel and they dug through rock 140 feet through a tunnel, made a tunnel so that the women could go get water so that they would be protected, but they dug through rock 140 feet with a hammer and a chisel for the purpose of making sure that the people in their communities were taken care of.
Today in our nation we're not protecting one another. We don't have compassion for one another. It seems as though we as Americans are doing more to get on top and stay on top than trying to help the man down at the bottom to at least live some type of decent life. And until we as Americans learn to have extreme compassion for our people, this country will never move into the direction that we need it to.
And I know many people I talked to outside some of these communities tell me a lot, we don't know what to do. There are many churches that say that they don't know what to do, and I believe that. But there are many people that don't care what happens in these communities. There are many people that would rather incarcerate our children than to educate our children.
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I have a problem with the correctional facilities. I have a major problem, because the correctional facilities around America make between 30 and 40 billion dollars a year. It's a business. The only way to keep that business going, we have to incarcerate. Less than 10 percent of the crimes in America are violent crimes. Other crimes in our neighborhoods are because of drugs, because of guns and many crimes are because of traffic tickets.
We talked to a lot of young kids down in Milwaukee. One kid went to pay off his traffic tickets. He got arrested on the spot. He had the money to pay for his traffic ticket, but he was arrested right on the spot. We've helped many kids. We've helped and talked to many young kids who have been incarcerated, and many of them have been incarcerated in some respects because of their surroundings.
I always ask myself this question, and I think it's a question that all of us need to ask each other. When it comes to drugs and when it comes to guns and when it comes to illegal activities that are going on in our communities, you have to ask yourself a question. Where is it coming from? It's not coming from these inner cities. These kids and these people in these communities don't have enough money to be distributing these drugs, to be distributing the guns into these communities.
When are we as people going to wake up and realize that crime is coming outside of the communities, and because the crime is coming outside the communities, we ask ourselves another question. Why would these young people deal drugs? Why would these young people distribute guns in their communities? Why are they doing this?
They're doing it because they lack other opportunities. When I look at the history of America, and particularly the history of slavery, one of the main reasons that Africans were enslaved was because of economics and skin color.
Now, let me explain what I'm talking about. During the time that the New World was to be built, the Europeans had to make a decision whether they were going to enslave their own. They couldn't enslave their own because their own could assimilate. They couldn't enslave the Indians because the Indians knew the territory, and the Indians knew how to sneak up on people. But the only people they could enslave was the Africans because of their skin color. We couldn't assimilate, and because of our skin color if we escaped, we were sent back to our plantations pretty much.
If you look at American history from the time that slavery started, at least from the time that slavery started, every 10 to 30 years the government would do something to make sure that the black man was not able to compete economically. I know that we over the last 30 years will look back and we say there's been integration, there's been desegregation, but there's something we have to understand about integration and desegregation. Without assimilation there's no desegregation, nor is there integration, because people of all ethnic backgrounds have to be able to compete economically in order to build their families.
Slavery has hurt our families. It's hurt our families big time. The conditions of the inner cities has hurt our families and other people's families also, and it's always interesting to me to understand one thing. Actually, I was told this by a friend of mine and a friend of his told him. We always should look at the situation and ask ourselves a question. Why did God create us differently? Why did God make me black and you white? Why did God make the next guy Korean and the next guy Asian and the other guy Hispanic? Why did God create the Indians?
Well, it's interesting to me to know why now. When you look at the black race, black people are very gifted in what we call worship and celebration. A lot of us like to dance, and if you go to black churches, you see people jumping up and down, because they really get into it.
White people were blessed with the gift of structure and organization. You guys do a good job of building businesses and things of that nature and you know how to tap into money pretty much better than a lot of people do around the world.
Hispanics are gifted in family structure. You can see a Hispanic person and they can put 20 or 30 people in one home. They were gifted in the family structure.
When you look at the Asians, the Asian is very gifted in creation, creativity and inventions. If you go to Japan or any Asian country, they can turn a television into a watch. They're very creative. And you look at the Indians, they have been very gifted in the spirituality.
When you put all of that together, guess what it makes. It forms a complete image of God. God made us different because he was trying to create himself. He was trying to form himself, and then we got kind of knuckleheaded and kind of pushed everything aside.
You know, they say the dumbest animal in the world is a sheep. A sheep will rather walk through a barb wire fence than go through an open gate. And if you look at the Bible, we're compared to sheep. And the reason we're compared to sheep is because without our shepherd, we don't know what to do or where we're going. And I believe when I look at this nation today, that we pushed the shepherd aside, and because we pushed the shepherd aside we're experiencing major problems in our nation.
We say this country was built on aspects of who God is. We put on our money "In God We Trust," but America is far away from trusting God. I was praying one night -- and understand me when I say God spoke to me, that God didn't speak to me like "Reggie, I need to talk," nothing like that.
I remember watching the show, real popular show, Touched by an Angel, and I remember the angel lost her powers. And the reason she lost her powers is she was trying to help a drug dealer and she lost her powers there and they thought she was dealing drugs. But they took her to court and the judge started asking her questions, and so she asked the judge a question, why is it that when we talk to God we call it praying, but when God talks to us they call us crazy.
So I just want you to know I'm not crazy. Okay. But in the process of knowing that -- I lost my train of thought ..... where I was going with that? Where was I going? What did I say? Scott forgot, too.
But in the process of understanding and really God showing me who he is, there's something that I think we all have to understand, and I want to share this and I want to move to something else quickly, is the concept of faith.
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Most of us believe that faith is what we believe in or I've heard many people in church say that a lady said one time she went in to clean out her garage because she believed that God was going to give her a car, or if we go to God and we pray and we ask him to do some things in our lives and we believe it, or if we just believe that God exists, that that's faith. Well, that's not faith. Our definition of faith, all of our definitions of faith, is wrong.
What faith is, if you look in the scripture and you look at Hebrew Chapter
11 and if you look at the men and women that were in that chapter, you understand that these people didn't think or believe that God existed or he was going to do something for them. They did what God told them to do.
And actually the Greek, the Greek definition for faith and obedience is the same. Faith has nothing to do with us thinking that God exists. We talk about faith-based organizations and things of that nature. A faith-based organization is an organization who seeks God's purpose and his plan and moves on it.
We must understand that faith has nothing to do with our beliefs. We kind of treat God like he's a spiritual genius. And when we want God to do something, we kind of rub the Bible and, poof, this kind of genie comes out and then we ask him to give us certain things. It has nothing to do with that.
The greatest man that ever lived on earth has served God and sought his counsel, God responded to them and credited them with faith because they did what he told them to do. In the process of understanding that, we must understand that if we want our nation to be a Godly nation, that we have to follow God and we have to seek his counsel.
The great kings of Israel sought the counsel of God. The ones who didn't, Israel suffered for it, and in the process of all of that we have to understand there are forces that will work and has worked against us.
I remember one time just sitting down thinking and God asked me a question. Why do you think that they crucified Jesus, what was one of the reasons? And my response was, well, I mean, he was a righteous man but they just didn't like what he was saying. And he said, no, one of the reasons they crucified Jesus is because he affected the economy. And I said, well, how.
He said, well, when you look at Jesus' ministry, he started healing people. The Bible said that there was a woman who had a history of problems for 12 years. She went and spent all her money at the doctor's. One day she came and touched the hem of Jesus' garment and she was well. Jesus emptied the medical office because people were going to him, and the doctors were not too happy about that because they were losing money.
Then the Bible said he fed 4,000 and 5,000, not including women and children. The restaurants and eateries weren't too happy because of that, because he was taking business away from them. And then Jesus started raising people from the dead. He raised them before they could be buried, and the funeral home folks and the grave diggers weren't too happy. So he affected their business.
But then the worst thing that Jesus did that got him crucified, and when I look at our society today he's doing the same thing, he went in the church and cleaned it out. The Bible said there were money changers. They were buying and selling in the temple. He cleaned it out and they got him crucified.
When I look at America today I often ask myself a question. Why are we pushing God out? I believe the reason we're pushing God out is because God is in and it will affect the economy. Major organizations will fall. There will be no condoms that will be sold to our children because we will be teaching chastity. There will be no more cigarettes sold to our people because they won't do things to hurt their bodies. There will be no more drugs distributed, guns distributed. It will shut down industry in America.
So we have to push God out. America has to push God out. Because if God got in, it would affect a lot of people's money. In that process we have to understand, are we more interested in the money or the people.
The people is what counts. The people are the ones who hurt, the oppressed, the poor, the fatherless, and when I look at even our government I also look at our church, and I will say to you who are in government, there's more politics in church than sitting in here.
I'm going to finish that, hold on. Excuse me. There's more politics in church than even in the government. I often ask myself a question. The church has told you guys, take the resources and take care of the poor, when the responsibility of the church is to take care of the poor.
I was talking to Carol yesterday. I will strongly support whatever I can to force churches, in particular rich churches, to keep the money over here. There's too much money that's going to mission work. I'm not saying that we shouldn't do mission work, but there's more money from churches that's going overseas than in America. Churches need to find ways to spend the money here.
One of the visions of Urban Hope is that as it takes in the resources, it invests in the businesses so we can give people jobs, so we can give people an opportunity to own businesses. Urban Hope will also own businesses.
Some people say, well, that's not right. Well, if the ministry is going to keep going and we're going to teach responsibility, it's got to be right. We've got to give people jobs. We've got to give them an opportunity to build their families and educate their children. That is the direction that we have to move in as a people.
So I don't really strongly blame the government for all the problems. To be honest with you, I blame the church more than any institution in America for the problems that we're dealing with today, because there's too much money running through the church. It has actually been proven that there's more money that goes through the churches of America when you put all the denominations together yearly than the federal government itself.
So there has got to be ways that churches have to be forced, in particular wealthy churches, to put monies into the communities of America, and then once we take care of our own then we can take care of other people's people. It's important that we deal with our problems in America.
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In the process of the church and the government itself I want to read something that I read from a book. The landscape of history is strong with the remains of nations once great -- once great who let more decay from within bring them to ruin. As the Roman empire rose to greatness, its populous no doubt assumed that it would be around for centuries to come. But even while its citizens romped in apparent prosperity, its foundations were crumbling underneath them, and so historians record the rise and fall of the great Roman empire.
And Greece gave the world its first historical attempt at democracy, splendid architecture, excellence in culture. It produced a dazzling roster of men including Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Greek civilization rose to its golden age until corruption set in and its politics, business, personal life, even its religion. According to a popular proverb, there were more Gods in Athens than men. The Apostle Paul clearly identified the nation's spiritual poverty from on the hill when he preached his famous sermon of the unknown God.
Other great civilizations have come and gone. The ancient Mayan nation developed brain surgery, excelled in mathematics and astronomy and built an incredible network of irrigation canals, then corruption took hold. Today it is a ghost of the past.
When we look at our own nation we have to ask ourselves a question. Is God blind to the sin of our own nation? Will he continue to bless us as he looks on our idols of silver and gold, on our pride of our personal achievements, on our prevailing rebellion against him?
The Bible repeatedly warns that without repentance judgment is inevitable. Righteousness exulted a nation, but sin is a reproach to many. America is not big enough to shake her fist in the face of a holy God and get away with it, and as I read this I want to explain something. I'm going to read this and then I want to explain something.
As America has permitted homosexuality to establish itself as an alternate lifestyle, it is also reeling from the frightening spread of sexually transmitted disease. Sin begets its own consequence, both on individuals and nations.
Let me explain something when I'm talking about sin, and I'm talking about all sin. One of the biggest ones that has been talked about that has really become a debate in America is homosexuality.
Now, I believe that one of the reasons that Jesus was accused of being a homosexual is because he spent time with homosexuals. I've often had people ask me, would you allow a homosexual to be your friend. Yes, I will. And the reason I will is because I know that that person has problems, and if I can minister to those problems, I will.
But the Bible strictly speaks against it, and because the Bible speaks against it, we allow rampant sin including homosexuality and lying, and to me lying is just as bad as homosexuality, we've allowed this sin to run rampant in our nation, and because it has run rampant in our nation, our nation is in the condition it is today.
Sometimes when people talk about this sin they've been accused of being racist. I'm offended that homosexuals will say that homosexuals deserve rights. Any man in America deserves rights, but homosexuals are trying to compare their plight with the plight of black men or black people.
In the process of history, homosexuals have never been castrated, millions of them never died. Homosexuality is a decision. It's not a race. And when you look at it, people from all different ethnic backgrounds are living this lifestyle, but people from all different ethnic backgrounds are also liars and cheaters and malicious and backstabbers.
We're in sin, and because this nation is in sin, God will judge it if we don't get it right. I want to read something about the Roman empire that's interesting to me when I look at our nation and see that we're going in the same direction.
The events which led to the collapse of the Roman empire are strongly similar to the events which are occurring in our own nation. Historical sequences, number one, Rome had strong families when they first started out. It was founded on high moral standards. Each father was respected as the head of the family. In the early republic, the father had legal authority to discipline rebellious members of his family.
We've eliminated discipline. When I walk in the store -- and I often tell my kids, and my kids will tell you and Carol and the people that know me will tell you, I don't beat my kids. I discipline my kids, because I can't have my kids being disrespectful to you. I can't have my kids being disrespectful at all.
I know when I was growing up and I got out of line, my mother would grab anything she could to sling it at me. But she didn't do it because she hated me, she did it because she loved me. And when I discipline my children, I discipline them, I sit them down and have them explain to me why I did and then after that I hug them and kiss them.
In America they say 70 percent of the fathers don't hug or kiss their sons after the age of six. Our sons need affection. I kiss my son almost every day. My son when he turns 50, he's going to have to finally say, "Dad, stop kissing me. This is really embarrassing." But my son is going to get my love and he's going to get the same love from his father -- or the same love that I give my daughter, as I give him. He's going to get kisses just like she would.
And that's a discipline I'm talking about. I'm not talking about abuse. I'm not talking about a physical beating. I don't need to hit my kids more than five times when I whoop them, because I don't want to go and get angry at them. But those five licks they still remember from two years ago, and I have two of the best kids in the world and two of the most honest kids in the world.
Number two, home education. The education of the children was the responsibility of the parents. This further established the children's honor and respect for their parents and also deepened the communication and understanding between parents and children.
Number three, prosperity. Strong Roman families produced a strong nation. The Roman armies were victorious in war, the wealth of conquered nations increased Rome's prosperity and prestige.
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Number four, national achievement. Great building programs began in Rome. A vast network of roads united the empire. Magnificent palaces, public buildings and coliseums were constructed.
Number five, there was an infiltration of a lie. As Roman families prospered, it became fashionable to hire educated Greeks to care for the children. Greek philosophies, with its humanistic and garish base, was soon passed on to the Roman families.
Women demanded more rights, and which women deserve rights. And let me tell you something about my woman, she runs the house. In order to accommodate them, new marriage contracts were designed including open marriages or marriages to more than one woman.
Big government, by the time the first century A.D. the father had lost his legal authority. It was delegated to the village then to the city then to the state and finally to the empire. In Rome, citizens complained about how their shortages slowed the rents, congested traffic, polluted air, crime in the streets, and the high cost of living. Unemployment was a perennial problem. To solve it the government created a multitude of civil service jobs including building inspectors, health inspectors and tax collectors.
And number seven, the decline of Rome through its persecution. The problem of big government only multiplied. Meanwhile, a flourishing New Testament church was established in the Roman empire with the preaching of the Apostle Paul and others. The final act of the Roman empire was to bring great persecution to these Christians.
Rome was quite tolerant of all other religions, but Christianity was bad, and they were persecuted, burned and thrown to the lions. By the end of this era the Christians had conquered Rome.
As we see in this we're dealing with some of the same problems. We're giving our kids over to other people to teach when they need to be taught at home. We're actually giving them over to babysitters. They need to be taught by their mothers and their fathers, and if they're taught by their mothers and fathers, they will respect everyone around them.
I can give you a great example. Balzo, who is a friend of mine over here, we've been ministers of kids down in Milwaukee, some kids that were gang leaders that are working with us now, that have totally changed their lives. And it's interesting to me, Balzo asked me a few years ago, he said, you know, I want to get my life back with God, but how do I go about that, what do I need to start doing?
I said, Balzo, what you're doing with these children, moving them into your home and allowing them to live with you, you're doing a whole lot more than many churches are doing, because people won't pull kids like this off the street into their homes.
Because Balzo has befriended them -- he has a young man right now that's 18 years old that held up his fifth grade class when he was 11 years ago. This kid is living with Balzo now. He's totally changed his life. He's working now, and the thing that's interesting about him, I spent a night with Balzo one night and I saw a Valentine's Day card and this kid had given Balzo a Valentine's Day card, and he told Balzo how much he appreciated him, how much he appreciated him giving himself to him and he said in this letter you are now my Dad.
We went over to visit the Children's Hospital down in Milwaukee. The last young lady we visited had been shot in the belly by some thieves with a double-barrel shotgun. She asked us to pray for her. I told Balzo, you've got to befriend her. Don't leave her. Go and see her. He went to see her.
One week I went down and we went over to see her. The girl has still got buckshot in the belly, but she sat between me and Balzo and laid in Balzo's arm and said, you're my daddy. Other kids have responded to him as saying -- he has a young lady that's mad at him right now because he's not giving her the attention that he used to, because she feels that Balzo is her dad.
Children want fathers. The mothers have been raising our children and been doing a good job in many respects, but it's hard for a mother to raise a child when they don't have the resources to do it and they're the only ones there. I have nothing at all -- my mother was a single parent for awhile, but the thing is that kids want authority in their life and they want a man that will be simple to them and caring to them.
The last verse in the Old Testament says that in the last days that God will return the hearts of the father's back to the children and the children's back to their fathers. Men, we have lost touch with reality. We've lost touch with responsibility. We've lost touch with our own children, and we've lost touch with what's going on around us.
