Focus on the miracle,
not the mess, Cook preaches

Suzan D. Johnson Cook: "You can't get to Easter without Good Friday."

PHILADELPHIA (March 17, 2003) -- She's been a faith leader for former President Clinton's initiative to deal with racism in America, a member of that President's Domestic Policy Council and a Clinton speechwriter.

But Monday night at Grace Baptist Church in Germantown Suzan D. Johnson Cook was all fiery preacher. The founder and senior pastor of the Bronx (NY) Christian Fellowship, a fast-growing congregation, Cook focused on the Book of Exodus and the role Moses played in leading his people to liberation. She brought the significance of that Red Sea journey home to the people of today.

"Sooner or later life will be a struggle," she said. "You can't get to Easter without Good Friday." At a point of liberation, some will not want to be free. They will say they were better off back in Egypt. But momentum comes with the opportunity for liberation." She noted that Moses and his followers were surrounded – pursued by Egyptians, surrounded by wilderness and with the Red Sea before them "between a rock and a hard place. Have you ever been accused, or struggled with alcoholism? You know what I mean. At a time of crisis you learn what you and the people around you are made of," she said. "And God is going to reveal to you what you need to know." With liberation, she said, comes revelation and then confirmation.

"If you are struggling and people around you are mumbling and grumbling, then you know you are on the right track," she said. At such times people around you may urge you to "go back. Don't you quit. Be still and know that God is God and that a breakthrough is at hand. Don't focus on the mess. Get ready for the miracle."

Moses told his people to go forward and God would help. "Tell those around you to go forward," she said. "We have so many churches that are dying because they want to go back to the way things were before. Leave the stuff behind you in the past and go forward. God's movement is all about going forward. Use what God has placed in your hands. There is another side to those exams you are taking, to the pain you are feeling, to the debt, to the drinking. The celebration is ahead. You can do all things through Christ."

Cook autographing copies of her books.

Cook is a popular selling author who's written A New Dating Attitude: Getting Ready for the Mate God has For You (Zondervan, 2001) and Too Blessed to be Stressed: Words of Wisdom for Women on the Move (Nelson).

A mother of two sons aged 10 and 7, she told a workshop audience after the sermon that writing her pulpit messages require her to spend considerable time "listening for God" and collecting ideas before she writes. "I usually have three or four sermons in my head at a time." As a busy mother, finding quiet time to assemble her messages is not easy. But she chooses Fridays after her boys are in school and her husband has left for work "and I don't do anything (else) until after I have finished the word." She encouraged her listeners to "be who you are. Your gifts will make room for you."

Cook has been a television producer and was raised in New York's Harlem. Saying it is important to think out of the box, she told her workshop audience of a relatively new "satellite" lunchtime ministry on Wall Street. The once a week session features a sermon on the street and involves about 450 listeners each day.