Mark Dawes, Staff Reporter

Bishop S.U. Thomas (right) enrobes his son, Bishop C. Everton Thomas, during the service of investiture in Kingston as senior pastor of the Slipe Road Emmanuel Apostolic Church. The service took place on July 8. The elder Bishop Thomas stepped down as senior pastor of the church after 38 years at the helm. - Contributed

He has been at the helm leadership of the Emmanuel Apostolic Church group in Jamaica for almost four decades. Now Bishop Silbert Uriah Thomas, 82, is about to hand over the baton to a new leader this month. The new leader is his son, Bishop Calbert Everton Thomas.

A Christian for 62 years, the elder Bishop Thomas served for about 15 years under the leadership of Evangelist Mulvina White (Mother White) who founded both the Emmanuel Apostolic Church denomination in 1923 and the Kingston-based Emmanuel Apostolic Church congregation that now meets at Slipe Road. The Emmanuel Apostolic Church group is Oneness Pentecostal in creed.

When Evangelist White died in 1969, Bishop Thomas (the elder) was promoted from assistant pastor to senior pastor. At the time of her death, he was a bishop in the church group. He was that same year, however, promoted to become the presiding bishop of the denomination. So for the past 38 years, he has served both as senior pastor and presiding bishop.

When the elder Bishop Thomas took over as presiding bishop, the denomination had 32 churches islandwide. That number grew on his watch. The Emmanuel Apostolic Church group now has 42 congregations islandwide and three branches planted in North America.

Despite the vigour with which he walks, the elder Bishop Thomas acknowledges that his age is a factor in him stepping down at this time. "I think I am not giving my best service now because of age. I am passing it over to him (Bishop Everton Thomas) and asking him to do his best."

The elder Bishop Thomas has few regrets as he looks back at his career and ministry. "I have tried to teach and preach the gospel to people - holiness and righteousness in all. I have not only preached it. I have tried to live it. There is hardly anything you could say I would do differently now." His advice to his successor is simply, "Copy my life. Seek righteousness, trust God and pursue faith."

He speaks with pride of his late wife, Evangelist Joyce Thomas, who died in 2005 who complemented his ministry. "I was married to the same woman for 57 years, make sure you write that," he told this reporter. That union produced nine offspring - three boys and six girls. He is now basking in the joy of being the grandfather to more than 30 grandchildren.

Since July the senior Bishop Thomas has stepped aside from his substantive post as senior pastor of the Slipe Road megachurch which is housed in what used to be Tropical Theatre. His son, Bishop Everton, is currently fulfilling that role, in addition to working as senior pastor at the denomination's Portmore congregation.

no jacket and ties

On succeeding his father as leader of the denomination, Bishop Everton Thomas hopes to do something major to benefit the serving pastors. "One of the first things I want to do is to sit down with each pastor in an informal setting - no jacket and ties, no Bibles per se - just to find out how he/she is doing as an individual. I want to sit down and find out how they are doing personally, they themselves and their families, to see what we can do as an organisation to ensure that their quality of living is brought up as much as is possible," said presiding bishop-elect.

No stranger to the highest levels of church leadership, Bishop Everton Thomas is the chairman of the Portmore Ministers' Fraternal, president of the Jamaica Pentecostal Union, board member of the National Religious Media Commission - owners and operators of LOVE-TV and LOVE 101 FM.

As presiding bishop, he told The Gleaner that his vision is for the denomination to "be a Pentecostal movement committed to the authority of the Holy Scriptures for faith and direction while embracing effective ministry paradigms for the 21st century".

He said he would be working to:

Strengthen the existing churches

Plant new churches

Provide training for the leaders and the workers

Ensure that the churches are meeting the needs of the community, spiritually, socially.

sophisticated generation

As a minister of the gospel, the incoming presiding bishop acknowledged that new ways need to be employed to do evangelism while remaining faithful to the message of the Bible.

He acknowledged that the present generation is more sophisticated than any that came before it. He said: "Each generation has got to minister to its generation. Jesus said go into all the world and preach the gospel. But He did not tell us how. He left it up to us to find the strategy and methods that would be effectively used in every generation. This generation is a post-Christian generation, it is an MTV generation, it is an iPod generation, we have to find a way to reach this generation in creative ways that is going to make sense to them, that is going to be relevant to them so that they are getting the message in a very creative way. The church has to tweak its methods. The message must not change but the methods must change."

Bishop Thomas (the younger) hopes to steer the denomination to becoming a church group that sends people on cross-cultural evangelistic ministry and missions. In this respect, he said sending a team to do ministry in Cuba is uppermost in his mind.

The two bishops are careful to state that there is no nepotism involved in the changing of the guard. Bishop Everton Thomas, 51, explained that there was a twofold process involved in his selection to succeed his father. First, last March, the Board of Bishops of the denomination selected him to become presiding bishop. This board comprises seven bishops, two of whom reside in Florida. Second, the nominee of the Board of Bishops is placed before the Ministerial Council of the denomination for ratification. This happened last July.

Bishop Everton Thomas (left) and his father Bishop S.U. Thomas stand outside the Slipe Road Emmanuel Apostolic Church in Kingston. Bishop Everton Thomas will succeed his father as presiding bishop of the denomination on Saturday, November 17.

introspection

Under his denomination's polity, the younger Bishop Thomas explained, he will continue to function as a pastor running the denomination.

Bishop Everton Thomas comes to the top job of the Emmanuel Apostolic Church group at time when it is undergoing some amount of introspection with regards to long-standing traditions related to dress code.

Three years ago, his father made some declarations regarding standards of dress. The result has been that women are not obligated to wear hats and they may now process their hair. However, the denomination, the younger bishop explained, is re-examining its position with regards to women wearing pants and jewellery. He said the denomination does not want the dress code to move from one extreme to the other. Hence, it is diligently exploring the issues.

On the morning of Saturday, November 17, Bishop S.U. Thomas and F.A. Senior, the Canada-based deputy presiding bishop, who is also retiring, will both be honoured at an appreciation brunch to be held at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel, New Kingston. Then at 1:30 p.m. that afternoon, Bishop Everton Thomas will be formally installed as as presiding bishop in a service to be held at the Slipe Road church.

Bishop S.U. Thomas (right) is animated as he speaks with The Gleaner during an interview earlier this week. Beside him is his son, Bishop C. Everton Thomas.

Send feedback to mind&spirit to mark.dawes@gleanerjm.com.