October/November 2016
CREATE JQ Sirls lives to express
himslef without limits as an artist, author and designer
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* The Riverside Project * A Place Of Shelter * Carried Away * Saved and Sent * Right or Wrong Side * Ron’s Photography
Mention Back2Basics for a special discount! Contact Anthony Tibbs for more information: 206-255-7272
Publisher Brittany N. Winkfield Contributors John Boston, Glyne Griffith, Kymone Hinds, Danita Jones, Mariam Kazadi, Eric Morning, Ronald Pollard, JQ Sirls, BlackLivesMatter.com Web Development Marcus Winkfield Advisory Board Tracy Augustin, Philip Baptiste, John Boston, Ramona Davis, Dean Dennis, Juanita Farmer, Kymone Hinds, Marisa Jackson, Timothy Olaore, Donald Rolle, Terri Roston, Michele Solomon, Jennifer Stone, Samuel Thomas Editorial and Advertising Inquiries 303-351-8180, info@back2basicsmag.com Information is correct at press time. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect the official company policy. Copyright Š 2016. All rights reserved. Reproduction in part or whole without permission is prohibited. Back2Basics Magazine is a registered 501 (c)(3) nonprofit in the United States of America.
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A Christian lifestyle magazine designed to inform and inspire young people in their walk with Christ
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2016
CONTENTS
BACK2BASICSMAG.COM Twitter @back2basicsmag facebook.com/back2basicsmag
volume 5 | number 4
features 5 The Riverside Project 6 A Place of Shelter 8 A Conversation with Marquis Staley 9 Carried Away by Mariam Kazadi 10 Saved & Sent by Kymone Hinds 12 Creation with JQ Sirls 16 #BlackLivesMatter 17 How do you know you’re on the wrong side of a revolution? 18 Ronald Pollard Photography
B2B Tip: Hope anchors the soul. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast. Hebrews 6:19 NKJV
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Do you have hope? We are living in a time when it seems all hope is lost. We challenge you to create hope, to give hope and to be hope. Our hope comes from God. It anchors our soul and keeps us moving forward in faith. The very fact that the hairs on your head are numbered shows that He knows every detail. We are completely in His hands and that’s where our hope comes from. He is our anchor. Don’t give up. Stay amazing. Stay awake. Stay anchored.
FAITH | MUSIC | MOVIES | INSPIRATION | NEWS | CULTURE | FASHION
P
eople relate to God in different and creative ways. Riverside Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church in Nashville, TN proves to be a true model of music ministry at its finest. Riverside SDA's exemplary and captivating worship arts ministry has now been captured on The Riverside Project: Music & Devotion, a 2-disc set, released by G. Favored Entertainment Group in partnership with Dream Gospel and Capitol Christian Distribution. “A few years ago we were convicted that God wanted us to capture the amazing music ministry that we enjoy at Riverside week after week, and provide it as an evangelistic offering to our broader community,” says Furman F. Fordham, II - Senior Pastor of Riverside SDA. Blessed with some of the most preeminent and award winning musicians and vocalists in the city, Riverside has earned a reputation for excellence and musical proficiency in various faith-based music styles which include traditional, contemporary, praise & worship, classical, spirituals and anthems. The Riverside Project: Music & Devotion is an eclectic 2-disc collection that captures the diverse music and the life-changing spoken-word ministry of Riverside SDA Church. Disc 1 offers 13 powerful praise and worship tracks including Riverside's first radio single "Declare Your Name". Disc 2 serves as a companion piece to the music of Disc 1 and features impactful spoken-word devotionals by members of Riverside’s ministerial staff. Riverside’s new album features many of their own premier vocalists including Joey Kibble, of the multi-GRAMMY™ Award winning group TAKE 6, Stellar Gospel Music Award nominated artist Terrell Hunt, the First Lady of Riverside SDA Jennifer Fordham, and Karima Kibble of the acclaimed Gospel trio VIRTUE. The project also includes special guests and friends of Riverside SDA Church chart-topping Gospel artist Earnest Pugh, Michelle Prather of the Kurt Carr Singers, and BET’s Sunday Best Season 2 finalist Maurice Griffin. Production is spear-headed by Riverside’s own Grammy and Dove award nominated producer Roger Ryan (Cece Winans, Whitney Houston, Kim Burrell, Michael W. Smith, Yolanda Adams) along with extraordinary up-and-coming producers Chad Hammonds and Melvin “Maestro” Lightford. This is truly a labor of love to the body of Christ. Pastor Fordham believes that this project will jumpstart people in their own personal devotional time and seeking first the Kingdom of God.
THE RIVERSIDE PROJECT: MUSIC & DEVOTION is available on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and in stores now.
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APOS
(A Place Of Shelter) is a Christian, faith-based, community organization that seeks to provide teens, young adults, and adults opportunities to experience social comradery in a safe, non-alcoholic, drug free environment. Our goal is to supply Christians (as well as nonChristians) in our community with a morally supportive option or alternative to the average night club, lounge or secular celebration. Motivated with the design to be a positive fixture in our cities and neighborhoods, this traveling ministry was blessed to have hosted four events, at different Aurora locations, in 2015. Sporting the tag line: "A faith-based alternative to the city's typical night life," APOS also facilitated a "Teen Testimony Night," back in March of this year! The center-focus was on youth, ages 13-17, who were encouraged to minister to other teens, through their personal testimonies of what God has done in their lives! --The night turned out to be very inspiring for teens and grown-ups alike.
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www.facebook.com/apos303
The ultimate goal is to make this service available, in some capacity, on a weekly basis! We intend to continue to measure APOS’s impact by the response we get from the community, superseded by our adherence to God’s guidance and direction. WE WANT TO SERVE! We want to meet the need. APOS is approaching its last event of 2016, which will be a Christian Karaoke Night set for Saturday November 19th, at TREA! Please see www.facebook.com/ apos303 for more details on this and other events, brought to you by the team at APOS!
PAST EVENTS
The Team @ APOS
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a conversation with
Marquis I currently reside in: Atlanta, GA When I was younger, I used to: Dream of becoming a Disney star
My favorite thing to learn about is: Life. This world has so much to offer. My favorite food is: Macaroni and Cheese The best show on television is: Golden Girls If I could go to anywhere in the world, I’d go to: Fashion Week in Paris The farthest place I’ve travelled is to: Jamaica My favorite color is: Green and blue My current favorite song is: N/A The book I am loving right now: Sex and Love I’m most excited about: What God has in store for me
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Three words that best describe me: Humble, Loving, God fearing
@Marquis_Staley
By Mariam KazaDi Carried – not lifted. Raised above and beyond, through and through despite what your circumstances say, or what you may think or see. This is the power of God’s love. It carries you through your worries through your fears and beyond your expectations. However, many of us have, at one point or another, allowed other forces in our life to carry us away, me included. Away from God’s truth, away from God’s people and away from God’s purpose. For me it is usually the unknown, the unfinished, and the undeclared. Not knowing how a situation will work out or how someone will react will always take us out, if we let it. In the season I am in right now, everything seems unsure. The outcome is not clear and the road is not paved. The way (Christ’s way) says to trust God but the flesh is weak and it heads straight to worrying and planning for the worst. This Carried Away series will call us out of that pattern of allowing anything to carry us away. Out of the worries of this world into the promises of God.
But the worries of this life, the false appeal of wealth, and the desire for more things break in and choke the word, and it bears no fruit. Mark 4:19
We want to bear fruit. God wants us to as well. God has something wonderful He wants to show us. Something great! He has plans for every person’s life, but if we have our minds fixed and focused on the wrong things, we will never get what God has for us, and we can never go beyond where we are now.
So we can agree we all have something that has us wrapped in a web of worries, swimming in a sea of distraction, and has seized our attention and held it captive. Ideally we would like this to be God. The word says he keeps those in perfect peace whose minds are fixed on Him (Isaiah 26:3). Do we know what that looks like? What does God keeping us in perfect peace feel like? I believe it’s something like a first love, a love you bank on when everything else is going wrong. You may say, at least so and so loves me, at least so and so thinks I’m great. This is when you know you have been carried away by a force. God longs to be that force that distracts you from your circumstance, the forces that carries you away. Life happens and bad things happen. Can’t argue with that. What I can say is that God’s word gives us assurance that when we focus on Him we can better deal with life and all that comes with it. This speaks to everything the world will throw at you and understanding this truth is sure to take us from carried away by others, carried away by our circumstance to being carried away by God into a place of perfect peace A place where we are focused on Him and not our circumstances or others. Maybe you’ve crossed this bridge in your life and have found ways to stay focused on God. Share your tips at goodfightfaith.com. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Mariam Kazadi is a Blogger and founder of The Good Fight Blog. For the rest of the CARRIED
AWAY series check out Goodfightfaith.com. Encouraging you to fight the good fight of faith.
All inquiries email goodfightfaith@gmail.com
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I
BY KYMONE HINDS
am sure I am not the only one it has happened to. I have composed important emails, to send to coworkers, my boss, people that I minister to. I put all the details that were necessary in that email and checked all of the spelling and grammar to ensure I made the best impression. And then I waited. I was waiting for a response from the other person. Waiting for an answer to my question and I did not receive it in a timely manner.
When I followed up by phone call or text, the other person informed me that they never received the email that I had spent all that time working on. Well I did what we all do. I go into my email and look at my outbox only to realize I never hit the sent button and that email stayed for days or hours in the draft folder. I know I am not the only one that has happened to. That email was saved but not sent. And it did not have the effect that it should have had because it never was sent. As we discussed in the last issue, God is calling the church to love the world – the people in the world, and hate the world – the value system of the world. So how does the church accomplish this? First we recognize that God calls the church out of the world using the gospel. The good news of what Christ has done for us. Not good advice of what we should do to live a better life, but the news that because we could not do anything good, Jesus came and lived a perfect life and gave us credit for it. And that news calls us away from the value system of the world into this body God has formed that’s living by a new value system. 1 Peter 2:9 says this: But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. The church has been called out of the world by God using the gospel and that’s how we are saved. And by the same power of the gospel, God continues to call the world out of us. That’s a continuous process to form our hearts to be like His heart. But God does not only call the church out of the world. He sends the church back into the world. In John 17 we find Jesus praying for His church. He is getting ready to go to the cross and we find His longest recorded prayer. In this prayer He prays for the church. Let’s look from verse 14 – 18. “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”
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Jesus is praying for the church. He says the world will hate the church. He says don’t take them out of the world but keep them from the value system of the world. Sanctify them through your truth. Continue to get the worldly systems out of them. And then He says, I am sending the church back into the world. Jesus calls us out of the world, so He can send us back into the world. He calls us away from that value system so we can go back and reach others who still live by that value system. For God loves the people of the world so much that He chose their well being over the safety of His Son. And He says to His church, now go reach them, go tell them. God is a sending God. He sends the Son into the world. The Son sends the Spirit into the world. The Father, Son and the Spirit send the church into the world. God has a mission to reach people in our world and He has called us, the church, to be a part of that mission. And many of us as Christians are like that email I talked about earlier. We are saved, but we are not sent. Each of us has to embrace that individually and collectively there is someone God is sending us to reach, serve, and share the gospel with. The reason we work where we work and live where we live is because there is someone in that circle that God is sending us to. What if we prayed and asked God to move us out of the draft folder? Ask God who He is sending you to and then live life in a way that allows us to interact, build relationships and be the good news to people around us. I started playing basketball at a local YMCA a few years ago. I was out of shape and was not confident in my skill. So I was honestly playing defense on offense. I did not want to get the ball passed to me because I was afraid I would mess up. I was unfit and not confident in my ability. And that’s how I had lived before I moved here to Memphis. I lived closed off to others. I did not want God to send anyone to me. But then I realized that because of the gospel, I am already empowered and have all I need, I learned to live open. I live now with new eyes asking God to show me who He is sending my way. I have intentionally began to engage in activities like running with others so I can meet people in my neighborhood. I have begun reaching out to invite neighbors to family celebrations. I am equipped by the gospel and now I want God to send me to people and send people to me. It’s time we lived saved and sent. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Kymone Hinds, his wife and their three energetic children live in Memphis, TN. He pastors two churches - Overton Park SDA and Journey Fellowship. He also speaks and writes regularly on different life issues. You can connect with Kymone via twitter (@kymonehinds) or on his blog at kymonehinds.com.
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CREATE with
JQ Sirls
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A
s children, we are often asked what we want to be when we grow up. While most kids answer doctor, lawyer, veterinarian, fire fighter, etc., JQ Sirls had a goal to take over Disney and create his own movies and books. The only thing that has changed today is that he’d rather create his own Disney than take over the current one. “My whole life has been driven toward that goal,” says JQ. He has always been very unwaveringly focused and driven. “I am incredibly stubborn and bullheaded when it comes to my goals and dreams.” Thinking back to ten years ago, JQ was a Kansas City college boy, teaching dance, running a budding clothing line and trying not to fail classes as he had a hard time seeing the point of school. “Many people thought I was dumb, silly, living in fantasy and would fail during my journey.” Instead of trying to prove them wrong, he focused on proving himself right in believing in his dream. He made it a mission to inspire kids who were like him sharing the message that they are only limited by their imaginations. “I have a lot of faith in the next generation. If I didn’t I would have to look and us and generations above as the cause. Seeds don’t grow without proper nurturing.” The goal for Sirls’ work is to bring a closer connection between children and adults in a way that makes childhood awesome and remind adults to live a little. He is doing all that is needed to reach ultimate goal of creating a feature length film studio, retail franchise and hybrid amusement park. There have been some pretty awesome milestones along the way. “It’s a lonely road following a dream that many don’t get until you reach milestones that they (and the you inside that’s doubtful) can quantify and understand,” says JQ. “I don’t fear failure. I embrace it like a professor who’s guiding me on what works and what doesn’t work for the next time I try.” Sirls shares that he is spiritually connected to his vision when he is focused, but when he walks in fear and not faith, the connection is lost. “It has helped me create paths untraveled and make calculated risks that have brought me this far. To do what no one has ever done, you must think differently.” www.back2basicsmag.com | 13
I don’t fear failure.
I embrace it... It has helped me create paths untraveled
To do what no one has ever done, you must think differently
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Current events have led JQ to be much more observant of his surroundings, “and I could bet my brothers are doing the same,” he adds. “I’m still combing through those emotions honestly to really think about a deeper impact.” He explains that focusing too much on the negative creates a fit of unhealthy emotions that can cause a slow down or blurred vision of where we are trying to go physically and spiritually. While he is still very actively working on his walk with Christ, he shares that the only way to stop darkness is through light. “I’m getting closer than ever on finding out how to harness the light. Have to focus on that.”
MAJOR Give it 100% effort or not at all; therefore, because I want to do X, and to do X the right way, I cannot and refused to the world talk me into Y and Z EVER as it could tarnish my character, create unhealthy habits, slow down my progress, or cause those who I am trying to lead and reach to doubt me. I wrote X, Y, and Z for those reading this. Replace those letters with your goals and the vices in the way of those goals and repeat it daily.
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What Does #BlackLivesMatter Mean? When we say Black Lives Matter, we are broadening the conversation around state violence to include all of the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state. We are talking about the ways in which Black lives are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity. #BlackLivesMatter is working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. We affirm our contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression. We have put our sweat equity and love for Black people into creating a political project– taking the hashtag off of social media and into the streets. The call for Black lives to matter is a rallying cry for ALL Black lives striving for liberation.
ELECTION DAY TUESDAY NOVEMBER 8 2016 16 | www.back2basicsmag.com
HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU’RE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF A
BY JOHN T. BOSTON You have more to say than you want to hear. You have little control over your emotions. You are surrounded by people that believe exactly what you believe exactly how you believe it. You have demands but you are not willing to allow established processes to address them. You are willing to disrupt all other vital processes with no regard for consequence. You justify your actions although equally abhorrent for your cause. www.back2basicsmag.com | 17
A Lens that Leads to Service
“How one photographer teaches the next generation to be people of service.” How can one camera change the world? Ronald Pollard, a certified Nikon photographer, asks this of himself on a daily basis. While living in California, Pollard felt a calling to show teenagers in the U.S. what it means to be a person of service; to be humanitarians. With this idea in mind, Pollard began taking annual visits, with local youth, to the country of Kenya in order to give them a better perspective on the needs of people and the world around them. Such an undertaking would involve many staff members, young people, and tour guides working tirelessly together throughout the year to raise funds for every traveler; a task that would seem daunting to many. However, Pollard was determined to serve the needs of those, not only in his own community, but thousands of miles away. With seventeen years, almost five hundred people, and several trips later, he has continued to succeed at this goal. Serving as current chaplain for Oakwood University, Pollard brought his unique vision of service to the campus in Huntsville, Alabama. While it would seem that most college students wouldn’t want to spend their summer break tending to sick patients or handing out clothes in impoverished communities, all while being thousands of miles from home, Pollard traveled with 23 willing students, staff and volunteers to some parts of Kenya that others would purposely avoid. On such daily excursions throughout the country students would learn that a simple song could make an orphan smile, a new toothbrush could brighten someone’s day, and a simple counseling session on healthier living could save a person’s life. In the midst of service, Pollard would take photos in hopes of capturing the beauty of the country, the spirit of its people, and the faces of the visiting students when they realized they were making a difference. And while most photographers would use such brilliant photography to pad their collections, Pollard uses his gift to change lives and keep promises. In one such instance, after photographing a young woman and baby, Pollard told her he would return and give her the picture. After two years of searching, Pollard found the woman and presented her the beautiful photograph with nothing more than a smile and a hug. Payments in hugs when servicing the underserved in overlooked countries, fuels him everyday. “It was…awesome,” may be the first phrase you hear from him if you ask of his last trip (an obvious pause occurring as he tries to search for a better word.) Often times when he speaks with friends he slips in, “when you come with me to Kenya next time,” which proves how passionate he is to expose more people to such a phenomenal experience. How can one camera change the world? If you meet Ronald Pollard, it’s the easiest question you’ll ever have to answer. 18 | www.back2basicsmag.com
Bible Reimagined Portfolio
Jesus Praying
Pilate Thinks
Peter Denies Mary of Bethany
Pilate’s Wife Judas
Ronald Pollard Photography Email: ronald33@me.com
Phone: 818-482-9545
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