Men of Standard Magazine by Jamain Freeman

The Gentlemen’s Corner:

THE WOULDA COULDA SHOULDA MAN

FEBRUARY 2013

Inside: Hot Exclusive Interview

How are You Living?

EVERYDAY...ON PURPOSE

A FATHER’S FOCUS: PRESENT AND ACCOUNTED FOR! SALUTE TO THE BROTHERS:

Thanking The Men That Are Doing the Right Things

Dr. Bryant Talks...

MINISTRY, LIFE, & THE FUTURE

Dr. Jamal

Bryant

From the Desk of the Publisher Salute to the STRONG Men...

Who Are Doing the Right Thing! Carla Cannon CEO/FOUNDER

VISITUS ONLINE

STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Carla Cannon MANAGING EDITOR LIta P. Ward ASSISTANT EDITOR Tenita Johnson ADMINISTRATOR Rhonda Harper

FINANCE EXECUTIVE Felicia C. Hagans VP OF MARKETING Jessica Taylor CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ja’main Freeman

CONTRIBUTORS

...For More News, Updates, and discussions on How to Better Equip and Empower Men of Standard

WHERE TO FIND US!

isit menofstandardmag.com to order your personal copy of this publication as well as subscribe to receive them monthly! Bulk orders are also available, for more information email us at: carla@ menofstandardmag.com.

Den Brown

MenOfStandardMag.org

Roosevelt Ethridge

Martin Bryant

FEATURE

ABOUT US

ur Mission is to empower, educate & inspire global men to live victorious lives while leading our families and becoming leaders in our communities. We not only focus on household names but anyone who is making a difference in their community. To be featured please email us at carla@menofstandardmag. org

Baron Samuel

Exclusive Interview with

DR. JAMAL BRYANT 04

| THE GENTLEMEN’S CORNER

| A FATHER’S FOCUS

| FINDING YOUR NEXT LEVEL

THE WOULDA COULDA SHOULDA MAN

PRESENT AND ACCOUNTED FOR LIVING EVERYDAY ON PURPOSE

I am very excited about our second issue of Men of Standard Magazine! God is deﬁnitely doing great things! This month I wanted to take a moment to solute our brothers (regardless of race) and say thank you for a job well done. So often the world tends to highlight and focus on all the fathers who left VS the fathers who stayed. The world likes to talk about the men who are locked up and in prison VS the brothers who made wise decisions and work their 8 to 5 or better yet are successfully running their own businesses. We often hear much about this man cheating on his wife or that man beating his wife. But never say thank you for the men who took their vow unto the Lord seriously and for the man who was strong enough to walk away from the sister who although she may have been wrong, he had enough self control not to put his hands on her. They often like to highlight all the “no good” preachers and pastors who are sleeping with their members and all sorts of craziness VS celebrating the true men of God who again took their vow with the Lord seriously and refused to compromise when many others did. I know there is a lot of wrong going on in the world today and honestly we really should no longer be shocked for the Word of God is only manifesting itself. The Word of God informs us that in the ends of times men would be lovers of themselves and also that many would take the broad path but only a few would abide on the straight and narrow. So beginning with our contributors for Men of Standard Magazine, I honor you all on today. I want to say keep up the great work and continue to be the positive example to those you encounter each and every day! To our cover feature, Dr. Jamal Bryant, thank you for daring to be different, for not being afraid to stand up for what was right and for always being the voice ﬁghting for equality for the African American culture. It is my prayer that

you all enjoy this publication and as we grow it is our goal to provide you with valuable information to help encourage you from day to day.

Carla Cannon

DO NOT BECOME

A Father's Focus Present and

The Woulda Coulda

Shoulda Man By: Baron Samuel

Imagine if you received a dollar for every “should have” in your life. Do you know how rich you would be? Regret, as it pertains to life, relates to action or inaction. Life presents us with all kinds of opportunities and ultimately we hold the decision to embrace or reject these opportunities. We can take the mighty leap of faith and risk falling to our demise, or we can choose to keep our feet firmly planted on the ground with our heels dug securely into safety, yet all the while missing out on what those opportunities had to offer. For many of us, there is a clear distinction between what actually happened and what we wished would have happened in a given situation. Many of us realize a number of options we could have had or possibly should have taken instead of the action we eventually took. This feeling of regret or sense of second-guessing can be summed up with the expression, “Woulda, coulda, shoulda.” Unluckily, we don’t have a crystal ball in which we can gaze into the miasma to see what would have happened if we subsided our fears long enough to go for it. For this very reason, it serves justice to our lives to pursue what we set out to accomplish and not allow distractions, detours or misroutes of fear paralyze us into a vapid life. There are no dress rehearsals in life and you can’t hold on to what you had, only to what you have. So doesn’t it make sense to go for it? After all, it’s better to make errors of commission than errors of omission. You only get one shot at life, so take the shot. Otherwise there will be a whole lot of “woulda’s, coulda’s, and shoulda’s” when you look in the rearview mirror of your life.

Baron Samuel

http://baron-samuel.blogspot.com 4

M E N O F S TA N D A R D M A G . O R G

With all the impractical distractions in life, attempting any life change without structure is a blueprint for failure! Your change has to be strategically planned on a daily basis! You can’t be productive on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and be nonchalant on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. That equals a week of being average! For real life change to occur, you must focus every day, on purpose!

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Accounted For!

Living every day on purpose does not mean that you have to go hard all day, every day until you place yourself in the hospital!

By Martin Bryant

No child should question the love that comes from their father. No father should separate himself from the love he provides to his child. Unfortunately we are in a time when absentee fathered households are prevalent. In school, the teacher would do roll call every morning. If you were not there, you would be marked absent. When it is time to vote, if you are not going to be in town on Election Day, you can cast an “absentee” ballot. Our children should not go one day calling your name, and you are marked absent. The heart and mind of a child is very impressionable. If you miss too many days of school, they expel you. Too many households have children with expelled fathers. There are too many fathers that settle for that absentee moniker. This has to stop! We have to take back our homes and stop walking out of our children’s’ lives, thinking it is okay. Our children need us and it is time for dedication from dads who will say “I am here” when called. It is time for dedication from dads who will say, “Present and accounted for,” when The Lord calls fathers. Fathers were created to lead, love and to provide lessons. Fathers have been created to provide, to protect and to prosper for their children and their children’s children. It’s hard for a child to truly have direction when father is always absent. Continued on Page 5

Living every day on purpose means: •

Schedule time at least five days per week to work toward your change (school, career, and fitness).

Your dreams are realized through you living towards your purpose everyday. By: Dee Brown

•

Schedule a significant amount of time each day with loved ones (family and friends).

As young boys, we all dream of becoming great men doing great things: doctors, lawyers, professional athletes, soldiers, and even firemen. We imagine ourselves all grown up, being the men we wish to become, living the life we wish to have. I remember being asked often as a kid, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Like most children, my answers changed as I grew older.

•

Schedule a healthy amount of time to rest! This is undoubtedly the most important!

Live Everyday on Purpose

No great accomplishment in life happens by accident. It is always achieved by wise, independent planning! Develop a daily schedule that works for you and begin to make necessary changes to live your life every day, ON PURPOSE!

Before I knew it, my senior year in high school had come Dee Brown around, and I was asked another question, “What do you deephenom@gmail.com want to do with your life?” That question required a more focused answer because everyone told me this was the most important decision I’d ever make in my life. If we are honest with ourselves, we didn’t have a clue what we Continued from Page 4 wanted to be as eighteen-year-olds. It is difficult for a child to learn in school if the class is being taught by a substitute teacher. And, just like school, For most of us, the trials and tribulations through life so much in life can be missed by a lengthy absence of the have caused us to fall, pick ourselves up, and learn what father. There is a roll call being made and all fathers need truly brings meaning to our lives. In those moments, to answer this call. Right now, if you are not present in we’re faced with trying to pursue that meaning, whether the lives of your children, it is time for you to take your it’s a career, lifestyle, or a spiritual change. These changes place in their lives. Stop being marked absent. Nowhere are common as we mature into manhood. Unfortunately, in the kingdom, or the definition of dad is a place for for too many men, they never succeed in changing! I used absentee fathers. God is calling; your children are calling. to fall into this trap. I would declare to my family, friends, When they call your name, will you be marked absent or and associates that I was going make a change, that I had a will you be present and accounted for?! As for me, I will new direction in life. I made sure everyone listened to me. be present and accounted for! Six months later, there was no change in my life and I was Martin Bryant living the same unwanted life I’d always lived. The mistake a.martinbryant@ymail.com I made is the same mistake many men make today. I made the choice without making a plan! I didn’t have a daily schedule to work toward reaching my goal. F E B R U A RY 2 0 1 3

M E N O F S TA N D A R D M A G . O R G 5

JB: Good afternoon, how are you?

little bit. I have been following you for years and you are a man that did not graduate from high school, but MOS: I’m doing great. I would like to thank you so much obtained your G.E.D. and five years later you graduated for your time. I know you have a very busy schedule so we from Morehouse College in which you later went on and do not take it lightly. received a Master’s Degree from Duke University. You JB: Oh no, it’s my privilege, thank you so much for didn’t stop there! (laughs) having me. You then went on and obtained your doctorate from

“

MOS: You’re welcome. I had the privilege of meeting you a while back when you came to North Carolina and you were very down to earth and were out in the midst of the people. I noticed you didn’t have an entourage or body guards all around you.

Everyone needs somebody to be accountable to;

Oxford University in England. Talk about perseverance! (shares laughs) MOS: I mentioned all of that to ask, where did your drive come from to persevere through it all?

JB: Well, my mother raised me to believing that quitting was not an option. If I didn’t persevere what else would I MOS: So, what makes you do things differently from do? It’s very clear that so many people give up forgetting those that have quote/unquote reached ‘celebrity status’? that giving up is not an option or at least it doesn’t have to be. No matter what you must always keep going. Under JB: Dr. Cornel West, a great Princeton philosopher said the Bible it says all things work together for good so I tend something some years ago on the Tavis Smiley State of to live by that. Black America show. He said, ‘you can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people’. I think we have come to a MOS: I am truly a witness to that! Today you are a man place that many of our preachers or personalities want who literally travels all around the world preaching. to be over the people JB: Yes. but don’t want to be amongst the people. MOS: In spite of your The old expression is busy schedule, I notice you have to be able to that you always make walk with the kings and time for your daughters still keep the common no matter what. I recall touch. I’ve adopted that one of your tweets as a part of my principle stating how you were and philosophy for life. spending time with them and so forth. MOS: So, how does it How do you balance feel to be considered ministry as well as your as a Pastor with one personal life ensuring of the fastest growing nothing goes lacking? ministries in the A.M.E. denomination? JB: I think I became a better family oriented Dr. Bryant pictured with daughters. JB: I am overwhelmingly person after going humbled by it especially through my divorce. It helped me to realize that family given the fact that I started the church and not too many was most important. Before I was divorced my family was A.M.E. actually plant a church. So, to be able to plant and my mistress and my ministry and career was my wife. And see it flourish in my parents’ lifetime is truly a blessing. now I realize my first responsibility is to my family and I am a third generation A.M.E. So to know that I am everything else is secondary. the product of my parents’ prayers is overwhelming and it just says that God can always bring new life into old MOS: With that being said what advice would you give institutions. someone who may be struggling with developing balance in ministry, family time, running their business, or simply MOS: Absolutely! I wanted to touch on your life for a juggling the many hats they wear? JB: (laughs) Right.

to be answerable to. You can’t be superman all the time.

“

Dr. Jamal EXCLUSIVE

Bryant

By: Carla Cannon

F E B R U A RY 2 0 1 3

M E N O F S TA N D A R D M A G . O R G 7

JB: I would just remind them when Jesus died on the cross for our sins the woman with the issue of blood wasn’t there. When he died, the boy with the two fish and five loaves of bread weren’t at the cross. When he died, the blind man didn’t show up. But his mother was there. And it shows that people are going to be there when you’re blessing them. But when you need to be blessed that’s why you have to plant the seed for your family. MOS: One thing I notice in society today is people tend to struggle and lose their family because their primary focus is on reaching the people in the street when often times we neglect the very ones that are amongst us every day. JB: Absolutely! MOS: Your latest book, World War Me. What brought this book into existence? JB: It was my own therapy of journaling and writing through my divorce and the trauma of going through public humiliation and falling short of the call of God on my life. Really just speaking out to people who have been wounded in the house of God, but haven’t had a proper way to deal with it or process it and to really come to grips with it as well. In my own circumstance I couldn’t blame it on the enemy or spiritual warfare but there are sometimes even in the body of Christ where we are our own worst enemy. MOS: I notice often times especially in the church we tend to wear a lot of masks, instead of being honest and saying, I need help or I’m hurting; but we tend to bury those feelings and walk around wounded and infected by the trials of life. What advice would you offer someone that may be walking around with a silent cry and because of their position they have no outlet of release? JB: Everyone needs somebody to be accountable to; to be answerable to. You can’t be superman all the time. You must look for that phone booth so you can turn back into Clark Kent. And that’s what’s very critical to understand. MOS: Through your various trials if you could preach one message based on your experiences to empower others what would it be? JB: His grace is sufficient. That is actually the sermon I preached for my initial sermon entitled: “No Pain, No Gain”. I had no idea that would be the hallmark for the rest of my career and my ministry. MOS: God is truly a God of a second chance. 8

M E N O F S TA N D A R D M A G . O R G

F E B R U A RY 2 0 1 3

JB: Absolutely. MOS: You are now no longer married, and are a single man in ministry what standard or words of wisdom would you offer other young men and women in ministry that tend to not know how to maneuver and focus on the call of God that is upon their life without getting caught up in all the drama that the “single life” can sometimes present to us. JB: Kwame Kilpatrick in his autobiography entitled: Surrendered, he said, “You have to learn how to spend time by yourself ”. This is very true. You have to learn how to date yourself away from the crowd. Find out what you like as a person, not as a personality. And when you are able to do that it’ll help you make wiser decisions about who you bring into your space. MOS: Awesome and timely word! I receive that myself! (shares laughs) MOS: Also take a minute and minister to those who may have gone through a divorce for whatever reason and are having a hard time bouncing back from what took place. JB: The hardest thing I had to learn was that I couldn’t be in control of everything. As a leader I’m so used to giving orders, giving direction and making things happen, but going through the divorce helped me to understand that at some point you have to surrender and stop moving and sit still. So, that’s a process that everyone has to endure. MOS: Back to your book, what made you write a volume II to World War Me? JB: I think again the book was just me thinking out loud as a reflection of what I’ve had to deal with in my own desires/wants and learning to govern them and incorporating discipline in those areas. I believe God gave that to me to share with a larger body. MOS: Indeed we are blessed by you sharing. JB: Thank you. MOS: Well, that’s all I have and again thank you so much for your time and I am honored to have this time to speak with you. JB: It’s my privilege. Take care.